


wrists like steel

by sternenrotz



Category: The Horrors (Band)
Genre: AU, Angst, Blind Character, Blindness, Developing Relationship, Dialogue Heavy, Ex Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Support Groups, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 12:17:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 62,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternenrotz/pseuds/sternenrotz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe has a whole lot of issues, and the fact that he no longer has eyeballs is only one of them, and Rhys also has a bunch of problems, but none of them are related to eyeballs. they meet at a support group.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> titled after "Giving up the Gun" by Vampire Weekend.
> 
> fic mix is here: ([xx](http://rhysspurgeon.tumblr.com/post/50140285662/))  
> divided into chapters purely for length reason, as it was written with no scene breaks. please don't let that bother you.

The world seems too empty now. Not so much black, the black of late nights with closed blinds or the dark of eyelids closed with the deep red of tiny blood vessels shining through.

God. Joe doesn't ever want to think about blood vessels or guts or soft tissue again.

The way the world feels, it's not so much the colour dark as it's the complete absence of colour. Like wearing sound-cancelling ear buds and pretending he's deaf, or the way his taste buds don't work when he's got a nasty cold, it's just nothing there.

When Izzy asked him how it feels, on his third, fourth day home after he'd finally been allowed to sign the leave from the hospital, that's how he described it, too, “like being deaf, but it's in your eyes.”

Izzy had said, from somewhere on the other side of his room, “sounds horrible.” Her voice had sounded heavy, so heavy he didn't want to say anything in response.

Heavy is how his new eyes feel too, cold and heavy and unnecessary. He's always hated glass eyes, the unmoving porcelain-doll glare of them, so he wears his black sunglasses all the time. Hates the way they feel, too, a bit like that time when he was a kid and swallowed a glass marble and it squeezed itself down his throat. He's still got a long scar on his stomach from that.

Some days, he's got half a mind to simply pop the fake eyes out and hide the empty sockets behind the dark lenses, but then, he thinks that might freak people out even more than the fake glassy blues. He gets enough whispers from people in town as it is, whenever he leaves the house because Izzy or his mum or Josh made him.

Maybe that's a thing Joe should be thankful for, the fact that he doesn't have to see his own face, can only trace his fingers over the rough scar tissue that cuts into most of his face, his cheeks and nose and his forehead, and guess how terrible he must look.

After the final operation when they'd finally taken out his damaged-beyond-repair soft tissue and retina and cornea and all those other words for eyes he never wants to hear again, after the doctors had removed the bandages, Josh had come to visit Joe, after his parents and Izzy had left, and his first words had been, “you look rough, man.”

Then, “I got Tom to bring me your sunglasses that he still had, if you want them” and his voice was muffled, heavy and awful like he was the one with the nasty cold. Thinking back now, yeah, there was definitely a reason that Josh was his best mate.

“Thanks, man.”

Josh smelled like stale cigarette smoke, the smell wafting over from where he was pushing his weight into the mattress, and that made Joe realise how much he was craving it as well.

“Think I can bum a fag or two off you?”

“Yeah, not a problem. You can make it outside, right?”

So then they stood outside on the curb in front of the hospital, after Josh had lead Joe through corridors and elevators, the stand of his IV clasped in one hand and the other linked together with his, and that was only a little bit awkward. Joe's legs shook in the cool April wind outside, underneath the flimsy fabric of his bathrobe, and even after Josh clicked his lighter twice and handed him a cig, the shaking still didn't quite stop. The first fag Joe had had in what must have been at least a week, and it wasn't near satisfactory enough. He blamed the morphine.

“Look at you,” Josh said to him, sneering just the slightest bit, when Joe took a deep drag and exhaled up into the cool air, “with your pyjamas and your IV drip and your stitches and your sunnies and fag. You've got to be the coolest motherfucker who's ever been admitted to this place.”

There was a small pause, and then Josh's voice returned, quieter this time, “oops. Think a granny just overheard me say motherfucker.” He laughed, still sounding muffled and pained even in the high-pitched affectation, and then stopped, and Joe laughed too.

That was before they took him off the heavy painkillers, of course, when everything was still a soft drunken buzz and the fact that he didn't have any eyes, that he couldn't see the cartoonishly exaggerated expression that Josh no doubt had on his face wasn't real. When it still seemed like a fucked up dream.

They stayed outside for a long time that day and Joe sucked down fag after fag, drank in the taste of nicotine like he couldn't get enough of it without ever getting any noteworthy buzz out of it. Even when Josh kept saying they should go back inside soon, it's freezing cold, you're shivering, what if the doctors are looking for you, he shook his head every time.

“Just let me smoke in peace, yeah,” and took another drag, still no buzz, “I need it.”

They spent most of the time talking, about nothing, the awful hospital food and the doctors, the just as awful midday talk shows and sitcom reruns that seemed to be the only thing showing on the television screen in Josh's room. It seemed normal, right then, talking about bands and the scene that Josh's new girlfriend had made when he called her and told her he was in the hospital, normal, if Joe pretended that he didn't have an IV drip stuck in the back of his one hand, and if he pretended that he still had eyes.

He got Josh to tell him the whole story of what had happened that night, eventually, because fuck knows he didn't remember a thing, all his memories clouded hazy by intoxication and bleeding pain.

It was a tree that did it, of all things, a thick, heavy oak tree on the side of the road that the car had rammed into with such an impact that the windscreen glass shards combined with the explosion of the air bag had marred his face and blasted into his eyeballs. A fucking tree, of all things, and Joe doesn't think he's ever hated an inanimate object as much as he hates that tree now.

Tom was in the back seat, and Josh said that he got off pretty easy, surprisingly, nothing worse than a cut at his cheek, nine stitches, and a mild concussion, he'd been able to sign his leave just days after he got here.

“Fucking Tom with his luck,” Joe said and ground the butt of his fag into the asphalt with the tip of one pointed shoe. “I hate him sometimes.”

“You're only saying that you hate him because he's shagging your sister.”

“Gross, leave my sister out of this. Bum a fag?”

“You owe me seven just from today, you know,” Josh said, then the click of the lighter and he placed the filter of a cigarette between Joe's lips.

“Thanks.” Joe puffed out a cloud of smoke and said, “no, but I guess I kind of do. Hate Tom for shagging my sister, I mean, because yeah. That's wrong, shagging your mate's sister.”

“You're probably just jealous. Not sure of which of them, though.”

“You disgust me.”

“You know it's true. Don't deny it, Joseph, I've seen the way you look at Tom.”

“Look can we stop talking about Tom's sex life and go back to talking about the accident that blew off my eyes and around a third of the rest of my face?”

“You're no fun at all,” Josh lamented, but then they did either way.

Josh told him about how the impact fractured four of his ribs, puncturing his lungs, and that his nose was broken, both things that Joe felt like he'd heard them before, but then, he'd kind of lost a mass amount of time to the morphine high.

“I've got an internal haemorrhage, that's to say, I've been bleeding from my lungs. Hurts like a bitch, I'm not supposed to even smoke right now.” He blew a large whiff of smoke right into Joe's face, and then added, “but, you know.”

“Live fast, die young, and leave a pretty corpse?”

“Live fast, carpool with strangers and fuck up your nose and your internal organs?” Josh laughed, dryly, and then stopped abruptly, and Joe figured that it probably hurt with a broken nose, laughing.

He laughed along either way.

“Honestly, not even sure what hurts more, I mean, the lung was a pain but it's healing nicely, I'm probably getting my leave tomorrow, finally.”

“Good for you. How long've you been here total?”

“Huh?”

“Sorry, I kind of lost track of time with all the surgery and painkillers. How long did you spend here?”

“Nine days total, I think.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Still going to have to keep my cast on, though, for the next week or so, so that should be fun.” Josh paused and then said, “I'm glad you can't see me with this thing, I look ridiculous.”

Then he laughed, and Joe laughed along again, because it was infectious, and because nothing about this was real, all just fuzzy at the edges that he couldn't see.

“I'm scared my nose might be even bigger when they finally get it off, though.”

“At least your face is still mostly intact,” Joe sneered, although he couldn't help but think that it didn't have quite the same effect without the sarcastic eye-roll to accompany it.

“At least we're both still alive,” Josh said and sounded far too much like a doctor or a mum with it. He clicked his lighter and pushed the filter of a cig into Joe's mouth, and then he added, “opposed to the guy who was driving, you'd heard what happened to him?”

“Not sure who I could have heard it from, other than you.” Joe exhaled, yeah, actually, he'd probably gotten some information from a nurse or Tom on what had happened, but then, that could have gotten lost in the lull of morphine and surgeries easily enough. “Shoot.”

As it had turned out, the guy who had driven the car, some nondescript mid-twenties uni drop out that Josh had claimed he knew vaguely through a friend, with an equally nondescript name like Kyle or Ken, something with a K, he'd gotten his ribcage crushed on impact. Died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. “Like a poster child example of why you shouldn't drink and drive. Must have been awful.”

“That's horrible, man,” Joe had said to that, but in the back of his mind, all he did was wish that he could hate that guy.

He still does, at times when it's quiet enough and he can't sleep, the emptiness behind his eyelids where he'd taken out the fake glass marbles too apparent, he wants to hate this dead guy whose name or face he doesn't remember for wrapping his car around a tree and just dying while he's left here with no eyeballs. He can't even do that, though, can't focus all that hate and anger toward some faceless nameless body or even that fucking tree, so it just stays there, festering in his gut like nasty black bile that spreads into his limbs and weighs him down. At least he's good at mixed metaphors.

What his mum told him, the same thing that the psychotherapist he'd been made to see had told him, it was to stay positive. Consider himself lucky.

Be thankful for what he's got, that unlike that dead guy, he's still alive, and unlike Josh, he doesn't have any damaged internal organs or troubles breathing or violent nosebleeds. Unlike everyone else, he doesn't have eyes, so he doesn't have to see the gross scar tissue that's spread all across his face or the fake-glass stare of his new eyes, on the rare occasion that he does remove the sunglasses, ever. If he suspends his disbelief for long enough and pretends that he's still got working eyes, he can just as well pretend that he's still normal looking.

That's probably the kind of positive thankful thought that he shouldn't share with his therapist, or anyone, really.

Some days, when he puts his mind to it, the whole 'thankful' thing seems pointless in itself, like repeating all the bad things that haven't happened to him to himself was going to make the one bad thing that did happen to him any less horrifying

He's got a family and a roof over his head and his A levels and he's never stepped into a landmine. He doesn't have cancer or AIDS or diabetes and he's not deaf or mute and he knows how to use the internet. All things that he should probably be thankful for, but the other thing is that he also has no eyeballs.

This is the same thing that he's had to hear from his parents far too often in his early teen years, “there are starving children in Africa right now,” but much, much worse. The skeleton-skinny black babies with bloated stomachs and flies buzzing around them never get a thing ripped away from them that they'd never thought they'd lose just because they were dumb enough to get into the passenger seat of some drunk and high stranger.

He tells that to his therapist, Dr. Beaker, one day when the summer rain is hitting the window pane and he's feeling particularly over that 'staying positive' attitude everyone seems to be trying to force onto him.

There's the scrawl of a pen on a clipboard, and then Dr. Beaker's voice, “well, Joseph, that's an interesting viewpoint.” Her voice is soft and motherly, in the same way that a teacher's voice is motherly. She sounds old, in her mid-fifties at least.

Joe hasn't got a clue what she looks like, or what colour the armchair he's sitting in is, and in moments like these, when he knows she's just about to say something important, that makes him feel even more disoriented than he did the first few days without eyes. He feels like he's spilling his guts to a complete stranger.

“I've got a question, if that's all right.”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you consider yourself a pessimist?”

Joe ponders the question for a second. He digs his fingers into the soft suede of the chair's arm rests, the suede that could be blue or red or purple, which suddenly seems like his biggest concern, and then he says, “yeah, maybe. Some days.”

“What do you mean by some days?”

“I'm indecisive, I suppose.”

And he feels like that's the truth, because some days, he legitimately does feel like he's got the worst luck in the universe. His whole life and the quality of it was entirely depending on the fact that he used to have eyes, but now he doesn't any more, so that means he's got it worse than the starving children and all those people dying of cancer or polio or from getting their legs blasted off by a land mine. Those days, Joe sits in his room or on the sofa and doesn't want to bother with anything, he listens to old records or whatever Izzy or his mum are watching on the telly, and he wallows in self-pity. He can't fucking see and he dropped out of uni months ago and now he'll never find a proper job because no one will hire a guy with no eyeballs and his last boyfriend dumped him and had the nerve to tell him they could still be friends. Those days, Joe is leading the single most miserable life that anyone has ever lived and hates himself even more for hating himself so much.

Other days, though, he thinks he might be an optimist. They could all have a point, what's with the staying positive. Being thankful for what he has, he's got a mum and a dad and Izzy and a room of his own down in the basement and he could probably get a somewhat decent job even without a degree. He's trying to learn Braille and he's getting pretty decent at navigating his way around with his cane and sometimes when he's got the stereo in his room all the way turned up the world doesn't seem that empty any more. He's still got his record collection and friends who will take him to gigs, Tom and Josh, even though Josh usually insists on bringing his girlfriend along and that makes things a bit awkward. He's got Rhys, and yeah, Rhys is probably that one thing that he feels he really should be thankful for, even on the days when staying positive sounds like the least possible thing ever.

How Joe met Rhys, that was around a month after he got the leave. He'd been stuck in a particularly bad pessimistic phase then, staying in bed all day for a week, smoking, and not moving from it unless someone went down and made him. Wallowing in self-pity and cancelling every appointment he might have had because he simply could not be fucked with trying to stay positive and work on this situation. In retrospect, he's not sure who had the idea first, whether it was his mum or his therapist who had suggested the support group, but they'd both had the same line of argumentation. Get out more, meet someone else with the same problems, see that it's not all bad.

The same logic behind the fact that there are children starving in Africa right now.

The first few times someone had brought up the subject, he'd managed to find enough excuses to dodge it for a while, he's already seeing a therapist. Those self-help groups are all massive pity parties anyway, he already gets more than enough pity for what happened, and he's already got friends that have things in common with him other than the fact that they can't see. Josh is taking him to this gig Friday night, and the day after he's going out to this new Japanese restaurant for lunch and then to the record fair with Tom and Izzy. It's not like Joe is lonely or anything. He's got plenty of things to do in his free time already, all right?

The fifth day or so that he hadn't moved from his bed other than to piss and shower, Josh came over. He plopped down onto the foot of the bed and pointed out, “god. You're really depressing now, you know.”

“Think I've got the right to,” Joe retorted, “on account of I'm still trying to adjust to the fact I've no longer got any eyeballs.” He had the desire to roll his eyes to punctuate the comment, except, right, he couldn't.

“When was the last time you've seen the world outside your house?”

“Must be almost two months now.”

Josh made a noise that Joe couldn't quite place, but he could picture the exasperated grimace that no doubt went along with it. “So depressing. When was the last time that you got a breath of fresh air? Let the warmth of sunlight hit your pasty face?”

“I don't know, a week maybe.”

“I bet you've got bedsores. Gross. Bum me a fag, yes? You still owe me.”

“Yeah, here. You deeply disturb me.”

“It's the reason we're friends. Mutual disgust.” There was a shift of weight on the bed and a creak of the bedsprings, like Josh had thrown himself down onto the mattress. “So what's the thing that's got you all holed up in here like a hermit? Go ahead, tell Doctor Hayward all about your problems.”

What happened then, Joe lit himself yet another cig on the butt of his current one, only a few more cigs in his current packet, the last packet he still had, so that meant he would have to go out to the shops and buy cigarettes the next day. God.

He took a deep drag and let his head loll off to one side, and then he started talking and didn't stop. Just let his mouth run without really thinking, let it all out, all the stupid angry pessimistic shit he didn't want to say to a complete stranger but that he could say in front of Josh, and the entire time, Josh just kept his mouth shut and let him. He let Joe just keep on prattling on and on about everything, until he felt like he'd said everything, and then finished off, “and I guess to make matters worse they're all wanting me to go to this eye injury support group. Like I'm not already wallowing in self-pity, I don't have time to pity other people.”

Josh let out a breath and then said, “well, I'd go if I were you. I mean, it's free, right, so if you don't like it you can just never come back. Pass me another fag, yes?”

“Here you go. That's the exact same thing my mum said, you know, I was hoping you'd be different and agree with me that it's pointless.”

“What can I say,” Josh paused and clicked his lighter, “I'm a doctor.”

“You're a physicist. And you've not even got your degree yet.”

“Don't question my authority, oi.” There was a shift on the mattress yet again, and Josh added, “besides, those places have free coffee and biscuits and stuff, don't they. They do in the movies, so you know, that's a reason I'd go.”

And here's the thing, the rational part of Joe knows that he probably shouldn't ever listen to anything that Josh says, not after everything that happened, but then the other part is also aware that even after everything that happened Josh is still his best mate for a bloody good reason. Besides, there's the fact that at that point, he'd gotten to a point of being pessimistic where free coffee and biscuits seemed like the best thing to happen to him in at least weeks.

So that was how, two days after that conversation with Josh, he found himself sitting in a flimsy plastic chair, ten minutes early for the Monday night meeting of Looking Forward. Support group for traumatic eye injuries, meets twice a week in the basement of St Sebastian's Church, only five bus stops from his house, which smells equal parts like mould and cleaner, and Joe supposes that maybe “Looking Forward” isn't the most appropriate name for a support group of people who can't see a thing.

The basement air was fluttering with the noise of footsteps and noises, occasionally the clicking of a cane down against the floor, and Joe let himself sink down in the most comfortable position possible and adjusted his glasses. Began tapping a simple beat with his cane, anything to focus on. To keep his hands busy and try not to think about the itching in the pit of his gut. Distract himself from the fact that he was in a room full of faceless, nameless strangers and about to tell them the story of how he ended up getting his eyes blown out of his head.

 Okay, yeah, maybe Joe was just a little bit nervous. A lot nervous.

 More minutes passed and he worked himself up to a more complex beat, alternating tapping his one foot and the cane, until he heard more taps coming from around him, other people drumming their canes down onto the floor tile, throwing him off balance. So he stopped. Crossed his feet beneath the seat of his chair and folded his fingers together over the handle of the cane and drummed one rhythm after the next onto the back of his knuckles. He waited for the room to quiet down, until the dull hum of the church bell somewhere far up rang half seven, and then it was, quiet, that was.

 One man began to speak, introduced himself as Dan or Damien or something like that, said he was the leader of the group. Began dragging on in the least enthusiastic voice possible about the usual procedures, tell everyone your name and what brought you here, feel free to discuss anything about your current situation that bothers you. Oh, and also, they've got coffee and orange juice on the table in the corner right to the door, and scones.

Exactly like in the movies then.

Dan or Damien kept talking for another few minutes, monotone and boring, something about losing his eye to heavy machinery and coping, and Joe began to zone out. He was vaguely aware of someone else beginning to talk, the whole conversation getting passed around the room. Everyone saying their name and the story of how they ended up here, occasionally some encouraging words about coping and staying positive, too, and then Dan-or-Damien finished talking to the woman next to him who'd had half her face melted off by chemical burns.

“Thank you for sharing this with us, Nathalie. Now, the bloke in the tight jeans, yes?”

His voice was still boring, so, so boring, the type of voice where Joe could just tell that the guy hated doing this more than anything. Still, it snapped, just a little, him back into consciousness and the words from his mouth, so for a second or two, he couldn't help but just sit there and drum into his knuckles again.

“No need to be so shy.”

“My name's Joe. I've had both my eyes damaged by shrapnel in a car accident and now I don't even have eyes any more.” He took a deep breath, felt the room crackle with mumbled sympathetic comments and the occasional “hello, Joe,” and felt like this was a little too much like in the movies. “And it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me.”

Then Dan-or-Damien began prattling on in his boring voice again, no doubt the same prattle of coping and staying positive that he'd given everyone, the prattle that Joe had gotten from virtually everyone over this, so he didn't bother listening. He sank back down into his comfortable slouch and let the flatness of Dan-or-Damien's voice lull over him and fade out. A little, it felt like white noise, like tuning a radio to an empty channel, and combined with the emptiness where there should've been a picture, with the heavy-fake glass where his _eyes_ should've been, it felt unreal, tiring, maybe. Also, it uncomfortably reminded Joe of being in school and trying desperately to not fall asleep during lessons.

The Looking Forward meeting is scheduled for an hour every week, plus eventually an extra hour after for coffee and socialising, and somehow, through the lull of voices around him, the rest of that hour actually passes, even though Joe isn't completely positive that he was actually awake for the entirety of it.

In retrospect, yeah, he's not sure whether the hazy memories of voices and sentence fragments fogging around him can be explained by a particularly bad kind of inattentiveness or whether he really did fall asleep.

The voices of everyone around him, most of them were sounding to be around middle-aged, men and women talking about work-related accidents, mostly. Two who sounded to be around his age, maybe younger, a girl with a similar story to his, got into a car accident, head-on collision, and it took one of her eyes, and a guy who'd gotten stabbed in a mugging incident, something along those lines.

The voice that snapped Joe back into consciousness, yet again, though, didn't sound like any of the voices that had gotten through to him in the last hour or so.

“Hi.” A young guy, his age, probably.

The room was noisy around it, the quiet chatter of conversation, and for a second or so, all Joe could feel was the mild panic of the possibility that he could have slept through the entirety of Looking Forward and the coffee-and-biscuits hour after, and into, well, whatever was now.

“You, yes, the bloke in the tight trousers. Joe, I think.”

“Joe's right, yeah.”

“You all right?”

“Suppose so. What's the time?”

A pause. “Bit past half eight.”

“Okay. Hi?”

There was the clacking of plastic chair legs on the floor, and then the voice said, closer this time, “hi. I wanted to tell you I like the band on your shirt.”

Joe bit his lip, hard enough to pull the metal tang of blood into his mouth, anything to jolt him out of the half-tired daze he was still in. The shirt he was wearing that day, it was a loose My Bloody Valentine tee that he'd borrowed from Josh probably a year ago and had never bothered with returning. A little bit, it still smelled like Josh's skin and sweat, even when he'd washed it multiple times, and he was pretty sure the thing had a hole somewhere near the collar, but he'd figured that if he had to make the effort to leave the house and go to this bloody support group that he didn't have any interest in attending, either way, he wasn't going to bother with looking nice for it.

“My Bloody Valentine? Yeah, they're all right.”

“I think they're brilliant, what's with the influence they've had on music today.”

“My ex was obsessed with them.”

“Oh.” The voice paused, then, and that gave Joe enough time to put two and two together.

“So you can see, then,” he concluded, and then immediately felt a bit stupid, because, yeah, could be just one eye.

“Yeah, yeah, I can.” The voice laughed, a light, jingling laugh, and then added, “both eyes, too. Oh god, that sounds horrible, but I'm here with my brother, he's the guy who got mugged, I just drive him and hang around the back.”

“Oh.”

“So I'm not some tourist or anything.”

“I didn't think people actually do that. Sit in on support groups for entertainment.”

“They do, actually. My brother's got this other support group, Thursdays, for post-traumatic stress, and I swear some of the people are just there for the coffee and the sob stories.”

“Oh,” Joe said, again, and he felt like that probably wasn't the most appropriate response, so he added, “that's terrible.” Then, because that sounded probably even more stupid, “sorry about your brother, by the way.”

“No, no, don't apologise. Not your fault.” The voice cleared his throat and then said, “I'm Rhys, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, I guess. I'm Joe, but you already know that.”

Joe stuck out one of his hands and felt Rhys shake it, felt his hand long and thin trapped between his own fingers where he probably still had months-old callouses, the skin soft, like he'd been using lotion or something.

“My pleasure.” Rhys cleared his throat once again and then said, “you're sure you're all right?”

“Why wouldn't I be all right?”

“You look really tired. Like you don't get enough sleep.”

“I'm pretty sure sleep is the only thing I've done all week,” Joe said, and wow, where did that come from, “sleep and smoke and play records, I mean.”

“Oh.” Rhys' voice was quiet, concerned, but not the overbearing kind of concern Joe had gotten from everybody else, and in an odd way, that was almost comforting. “That's really depressing, you know?”

“Think I'm allowed to be depressing.”

“Fair enough. So you listen to records, then?”

“I've got a small collection, yeah.”

“You've ever been to the record fair in Southend, it's amazing.”

“Think I've heard of it,” and really, the plan had been that Joe would spend an hour sitting here in Looking Forward and then never come back, because, honestly, he wasn't even sure why he'd let Josh of all people even convince him to go. But now, now he had Rhys sitting right next to him who just seemed so desperate to draw him into a conversation and so eager about it, too, and actually honest and, most importantly, not Josh or Tom or anyone else who he'd known from before and who would keep pointing out how much he's changed.

“You should go, at some point, we can go together.” Another short pause in which Joe wasn't sure what to reply, and then Rhys added, “I brought you a coffee, by the way, I wasn't sure how you like it, so I got regular with a shot of milk in, but if you drink decaf or black I can get you another, and I have a packet of sugar in my coat pocket if you like your coffee sweet, so.”

“Thanks, I guess.” Joe reached out his hand and Rhys placed a wobbly cheap plastic cup into it, still warm and steaming a bit when Joe raised it to his face and took a sip. Thin, watered down coffee, scalding down his throat and still overly bitter even through the milk.

“I know, tastes shite, but it's free, so there's that.”

“Well, I've had worse.”

“They only have decaf at the post-traumatic group. And their orange juice is full of pulp, it's terrible.”

“Can't imagine how awful that must be. To be completely normal and having to drink awful coffee at support groups.”

“Yeah, okay, fair enough.” Rhys laughed. “Good scones, though.”

Joe sipped his coffee again and tried his hardest to ignore the awful taste of it. There was a bit of silence spreading out around the two of them, the kind of silence situated somewhere between awkward and not-awkward that almost felt buzzing with anticipation, like Joe was waiting for Rhys to say something, or for himself to say something.

“That's not your natural colour, is it?”

“What?”

“Your hair, the black isn't natural, right?”

“That's a really weird question, you know,” and Joe couldn't help but actually laugh. “But no, it's not natural, I dye it every month.”

“Oh.”

“What, were you trying to come on to me by asking if the carpet matches the drapes?”

“Do you want me to come on to you?”

“That's a pretty loaded question.” Joe shrugged and took another sip from his coffee, and really, this whole conversation was beginning to make him. Well. Not uncomfortable, definitely not, but it ached in his chest like something swelling and pushing into his ribcage, and okay, maybe it felt wrong. The weird kind of wrong, like he felt like he was doing the wrong thing without ever really establishing why it was wrong or who had decided that it was.

Because he was supposed to be sad over his life, and forget about this whole support group endeavour as soon as it was over and never return, and not flirt with strange boys while he was there.

“I don't think I was coming on to you, that wasn't really my intention.”

“Oh.”

“But, look, I dye my hair too, so I figured that's already three things we have in common, we both like My Bloody Valentine and both have a record collection and we both dye our hair black.”

“Sounds to me like you are coming on to me.”

“I don't even know any more if I am.” Rhys laughed. “No, I figured I might as well try to make friends if I've got to come here once a week already, and you seemed kind of all right, so...”

“So,” Joe repeated.

“Yeah. This conversation's just got really awkward, hasn't it?”

“Kind of, yeah.” Joe tapped his finger against his knuckles once more. He was beginning to crave a smoke. “God, I need a fag.”

“You mind if I come along and bum one?”

So then they were standing outside the side entrance to St Sebastian's, smoking in the soft-warm early Summer evening air. Joe let Rhys bum a fag off him, even though, usually, he only ever bummed them to Josh and no one else, and, okay, maybe he was a bit concerned with whether that, like, meant anything. Yeah, that sounded overly dumb and girlish, but then, in his defence, talking to Rhys was probably the closest thing Joe had gotten to scoring in what, at least four months or so, which, really, was kind of sad in itself.

“So. You think you're coming back next week, then?” Rhys asked after it had been quiet between them for a few minutes, and it caught Joe by surprise, almost.

“Thinking about it, yeah.” Joe puffed out a cloud of smoke and threw the butt of his cig down onto the ground. “I mean, the whole support group thing is a bit pointless, doubt it actually helps anyone, but there's other reasons to go here, I guess,” and wow, okay, where was he going with this, he was almost certain that now he was the one who was coming on to Rhys.

“I'm flattered.”

“I was talking about the free coffee and scones, but all right.” There, that was better. Not coming on to Rhys.

Then there was a swat to his shoulder, and Rhys said, “oi, watch it.”

Joe laughed. “What, you said the scones were good.”

“Well, they are, but you know, the next time you make it sound like you're coming on to me you could at least have the decency to let me down gently and not say that you'd rather have scones and shite coffee than me.”

“Yeah, I'll remember that for the future.” Joe lit himself another fag.

“So that means you're coming back next week?”

“Guess I am.”

“Great. Think you can bum me another one?”

“Yeah, here,” and really, okay, maybe he really should have said no, because he didn't even bum fags to most of his closest friends, but now he was passing them out to this boy whose face he didn't even know, and maybe that was the sort of thing he'd better had started getting used to, according to his therapist, but right now, it kind of bothered him a lot. Especially given the fact that they'd only just met. Either way, Joe dug his packet of cigs out from his shirt pocket once more and held it out to Rhys. “Say, do you come on to all the blokes at support groups?”

“Not really, no,” and Rhys breathed a long string of stinging smoke into Joe's face, “you're the first.”

“Oh.”

“Does it bother you? That I'm coming on to you?”

Joe shrugged his shoulders at that, because really, he wasn't sure whether he could really say that it bothered him.

“I mean, I can try and stop doing it. I don't really do it on purpose.” Rhys laughed, bright and short, and Joe could feel it in his lungs and tickling in his gut, and wow, maybe that wasn't the reaction he should have had to that. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Not really. I don't mind.”

“All right,” Rhys said, “I'll try my hardest to push myself onto you next week, then.”

“Excellent,” and Joe laughed as well, although there was still the fact in the back of his mind that maybe he shouldn't be doing this, that he was supposed to be miserable. He ground the butt of his fag out with his shoe. “Hey, do you have the time?”

“Quarter to eight. Why?”

“Got to catch my bus, soon.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I think I should probably get back to my brother, too. So next week, then?”

“Next week, yeah.”

So that night, Joe left St Sebastian's with the biggest grin on his face that he'd had in months, and later, when he got back home and Izzy asked him whether the support group had been a success, then, he said, “suppose so,” and the next few days, he felt so sickeningly optimistic it almost hurt.

He told Dr. Beaker about Looking Forward, but not about Rhys, and when she asked whether he thought of it as a good idea, Joe shrugged and said, “well, it's always nice to meet new people.”

“So, Joseph, does that mean your mood has improved compared to last week?”

“I suppose. It's really confusing right now. I'm not even sure if I want to go on with normal life.”

“What do you mean by normal life?”

“You know, friends and love and a job and things like that. I don't know if I want to carry on doing that or if I want to spend the rest of my life useless and living in my mum's basement.” Joe took a deep breath and shifted in his armchair. He craved a fag, but not until the end of the session, and he was maybe twenty minutes into it at most. “Yeah, everyone keeps telling me I have to learn how to cope and get on, but I don't really see the point. It'd be way easier to not do anything at all and just spend the rest of my life useless, and I just don't see the point. I don't really want to put in effort just so I can get back to my regular life.” Then he realised how much that sounded like teen angst, so he said it, “god. I sound like a whiny teenager.”

“I get the impression you don't take your own emotions seriously.”

“I don't see what that has to do with anything.” Joe folded his fingers. He really, really needed that fag. “All I'm saying is, I feel like an idiot because sometimes I want to do the thing that I know is probably wrong because it's easier and sometimes I want to do the thing that everyone tells me is right and important even though it won't make my life any better and will just keep it from getting even worse.” He stretched his legs out in front of him and said, “I'm confused and I hate it, if you want me to put it concisely.”

There was the sound of a pen scrawling onto paper, a long, ongoing scrawl, and then the Dr. Beaker's voice came, “I have to admit, that does sound pretty confusing.”

“Well, it is.”

He really did feel like that, thoroughly confused, so when he was lying in bed late that night, trying to ignore the emptiness in his eye sockets where he'd removed the glass marbles, he couldn't sleep, and okay, maybe that was not just the fact that he didn't know where to go from here, whether he wanted to listen to the pessimistic part of himself or the optimistic one, but also because this was Friday night and he only had two more days until he was going to see Rhys again. Rhys, he still didn't know what to do about him, whether he should go ahead and just let happen whatever might happen or whether he should just give up on ever trying to pull anyone again, what was with having dead fake eyes and scars all across his face, not to mention what happened the last time he decided to date a guy.

The exact same optimist versus pessimist debate, then, basically.

That night, Joe stayed up smoking until after he could hear Izzy's footsteps in her room through the cracked door. He put on an old Bob Dylan record he'd gotten at a charity shop, even though he'd never really been into Dylan and wasn't even sure why he'd bought that record in the first place, and sulked and felt like a bad case of teenage angst, too.

Either way, Monday evening he was back at St Sebastian's for yet another meeting of Looking Forward, and just as he'd said, Rhys was there, too, greeting him with the screech of chair legs on the smooth tiles and a soft, “hey there.”

“Hey.”

“How was your week without me?”

“You're already coming on to me again?”

“Naturally. How was your week?”

Joe shrugged. “Confusing.”

“Good confusing or bad confusing?”

“I don't think there's a good kind of confusing.”

“So you're saying your week was bad, then.”

“Terrible week.”

“And I bet the only thing that kept you going until Monday evening was the prospect of seeing me again, yeah?”

Yeah, just as he'd said, Rhys really was trying as hard as possible to push himself onto Joe, and honestly, Joe wasn't sure if he minded. “You're the light of my life, yeah,” he said deadpan, though.

The bell far above them rang half seven soon enough, and Rhys left with a small whisper of, “I'd better go now so I can sit in the corner like a tourist. See you later, yeah?”

The same deal as the last time, Dan-or-Damien opened the meeting up by introducing himself and retelling his heavy machinery accident in his boring voice, and then proceeded to retell his little speech of life-changing events and coping and getting on, like replaying a fuzzy old tape. The conversation went around the room, same as last time, men and women who kept droning on about work-related accidents, and Rhys' brother who got mugged. This time, though, Joe was trying his hardest to not doze off, now that he knew that Rhys was there, watching, and maybe that was stupid, but still, even behind his shades he was trying his hardest to look as alert as he possibly could. He fingered the handle of his cane and at least made an attempt to listen to everyone's stories, and when it was his turn to speak, he said his lines.

“My name's Joe, and I've had my eyes damaged by shrapnel in a car accident to the point where they couldn't do anything but take them out.” He paused for a second and drummed his fingers and then added, “and it's still the most terrible thing that's ever happened to me but it's also made everything really confusing.”

He let Dan-or-Damien's voice prattle down monotone onto him and sank back down into his chair. Kept listening to everyone's stories and let the hour pass, and then, when it was over, he found himself sitting outside on the stairs to the side entrance once more, sipping bad coffee and sucking on a cig. Rhys was chattering next to him, about music and his life, he was getting his degree in a few weeks and now while he was figuring out what to do with his life, he was working at a record shop and also doing DJ sets at clubs every few weeks, all at a speed that made Joe feel not entirely sure whether he was supposed to reply, and really, he didn't mind all too much. Okay, maybe he liked it a lot, to just listen to Rhys' soft voice talk about this band that he's just heard about that Joe should really check out, they're brilliant, they're going to get big, and about how he'd thought about doing that himself, he could play the organ and he was pretty good at bass, too, about being in a band, but he didn't really have anyone to start one with, so he was just going to stick with DJing for now.

“I've got a gig next Friday, by the way, this place in Islington. You should come.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Joe shrugged and lifted his cup of coffee up to his lips yet again. Maybe, he was going to ask Josh and Tom to come along with him, since the last time he'd seen Josh, he'd been complaining that Joe just doesn't get out enough any more, the same complaint he made every time.

“You don't talk a lot, do you?”

“I don't know, it's not that. Just, you talk way too much.”

“I can try and stop it. If you want me to.”

“Don't stop,” and okay, Joe was definitely venturing into 'coming on to Rhys' territory once more. “I like when you talk.”

“You're coming on to me again.”

“Yeah. I guess I am. You want to keep talking?”

“You want to come to my DJ set? Would mean more than any sort of coming on to me.”

“Yeah, all right.”

So, the next week, after another boring meeting of Looking Forward followed by coffee and cigarettes at the side entrance with Rhys, another long conversation that was less one-sided because Rhys decided to not talk as much this time around, Friday night, Joe took the tube all the way to Islington alongside Josh and Tom.

They got there early and the club, a little downstairs hole-in-the-wall place with ridiculously low ceilings that smelled of incense, was already humming with instrumental psychedelic sounds that vibrated the floor and rattled all the way into Joe's brain. He swore, he could feel the rhythm in his glass marbles. They sat down in a booth in what Joe assumed was the corner after Josh had ordered three glasses of whiskey cola at the bar, and this, really, this was nice.

Joe sipped his drink and relaxed into the plush upholstery, and when Josh and Tom began chatting on about something that happened last week or so when they'd gone out to the pub with Izzy and Josh's girlfriend, he listened in and laughed and made a few relevant remarks of his own.

A thing that Joe liked, about gigs, about bars and alcohol and spending time round Tom and Josh was, it felt a lot like Before The Accident, and he hated thinking of it like that, that he had a thing happen to him that was so dramatic and life-changing that he could sort his entire life based on “before” and “after” like a character from one of these awful based-on-a-true-story made for TV films his mum watched, something like that. Still, though, he liked this, getting ever so slightly buzzed and feeling the music vibrate inside his bones, chatting like nothing had happened as long as he pretended he could still, you know, actually see the dim and bright-light combination of clubs.

Rhys came round their table after maybe twenty minutes, sitting down in the booth entirely too close to Joe to not be coming on to him and introducing himself, “these guys are your mates, then?”

“Tom and Josh. They're cunts, most of the time,” Joe said and shrugged, earning him an elbow from Josh in the side.

“Well, still, pleasure to meet you two. What kind of music d'you like?” Rhys' voice was bright and loud and a bit too excited, like he was on drugs, or maybe that was the pre-gig excitement, his body warm against Joe's side, and Joe liked this a lot, too, even after the conversation quickly degenerated to Josh prattling on about guitar distortion used by 80s bands, when minutes before they'd all been involved in an extended discussion about local bands and record shops.

Rhys went to leave after a while, when Josh was currently winning their argument on which My Bloody Valentine album was better, “I'm on in ten minutes, got to go now, sorry.” He wrapped one arm around Joe's shoulders and kissed him on the cheek, just for a short second, and yeah, okay. “I'll try and catch you again when my set's over, all right?”

“You're really unsubtle about coming on to me tonight, you know?”

“I know. Thought I had permission to be, this is practically a date.”

“Shitty date.”

“Yeah. You guys want another round of drinks? Next one's on me.”

After Rhys had gone for good, when Joe was sipping yet another whiskey cola, Josh elbowed him in the side once again, softer this time around. “Congratulations, he's cute. Didn't think you were into the flaming ones, though.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You're fucking Rhys, come on.”

“It's nothing, we're mates. I've met him how often, three times.”

“Only a matter of time, then.”

In the end, Rhys didn't manage to catch up with Joe again after his set, but even then, Joe didn't mind all that much, and it wasn't like Rhys was the only reason he'd decided to come here, anyway. Really. Still, he had a good time, Rhys' DJ set was great, a mixture of somewhat popular songs and obscure stuff, good enough to make Joe nod his head in time and tap his foot to the beat, and to make him wish he could still dance properly and not feel like an awkward idiot for it because he couldn't see where the fuck he even was. Tom left their booth a few songs in because he'd seen this friend of his and decided to catch up with him, but Josh stuck around because he didn't dance, and even when he spent most of the time he was trying to talk to Joe over the sound of music making teasing comments on whether or not he was fucking Rhys, Joe appreciated it, really. Probably had a lot to do with the fact that somehow, even through the dark glasses, his pout still worked just as well as it did a year ago, and so, Josh just kept buying him more and more drinks.

Yeah, by the end of the night Joe was absolutely sloshed, pissed, off his face drunk, which was actually the best he'd felt in quite a while, even when it got to the point where he could no longer walk properly, and, he was certain, wouldn't have been able to see straight, either, and Josh had to escort him up the stairs, out the club's entrance and to the nearest cab.

The problem with being drunk, though, by the time he woke up on Josh's sofa Joe's head was aching heavy and the room seemed to tilt and move beneath his feet with every staggering step he did on his way to the bathroom, with the intent to piss, originally, but actually also to empty the contents of his stomach into the tub. His first instinct was to just go back to the living room, or maybe Josh's bedroom since the flat was disturbingly quiet and therefore Josh was most likely still in bed, warm and asleep, or maybe willing to provide a decent enough distraction from the heavy-dead hurt in Joe's brain. So he did, stumble the way into Josh's bedroom that he'd walked enough times to find it even blind and hungover, and collapsed onto one side of the bed.

“Morning.”

A rustle of the sheets, and then Josh's voice replied, “morning. Look rough as fuck.”

Joe pressed one hand to the side of his head, felt the normally sleek-straight having gone fluffy-messy with sleep on top of where his skull was aching and said, “yeah, I'm aware.” Then, “you wanna make us coffee?”

“You're entirely too demanding for someone who I'm not having sex with,” Josh pointed out, but then the bed creaked either way.

“Don't act like you can resist my charm.”

“With the state you're in right now, yeah, I can. You still take two sugars and milk in your coffee?”

“Think I need it pure black this morning.”

Then Josh was gone, heavy footsteps on the wooden floor, and Joe rolled over to the warm side of the bed and buried his face in the pillow which smelled all too much like Josh's near-constant stink of various hair products as well as the stench of sleep-sweat. He tried to ignore it, and later, when Josh returned from the kitchen with two mugs of hot coffee, he still felt like it was a bit weird, to be here again, and that was another thing he tried to ignore, that and the bitter-hot of the coffee. Still, at least it was doing its job, ever so slowly raising him from his hungover zombie state to regular dead-tired, and he blinked a bit like that would make him feel less tired.

“Don't do that, that's really gross.”

“What?”

“Blink. Your glass marbles are the creepiest fucking thing ever to my early morning brain.”

“You're a piece of shit.”

“And that's why you love me.” Josh made a loud, slurping drinking noise and added, “never drinking as much as I did last night again, fuck.”

“How much did you even have?”

“Much as you did.”

“Fuck.” Joe exhaled and took another sip from his coffee. He was beginning to crave a smoke. “Honestly, hangover aside, we don't do this often enough any more.”

“What? Gigs or drinking?”

“Suppose both. Mainly the latter.”

“Fuck, could you maybe bring up the idea of drinking when I'm not hungover and it seems like a good idea?”

“That's to say you agree that we should do last night all over again next weekend, then,” Joe said, and he liked that too, the fact that he knew Josh well enough to know by now that he never meant it when he said that maybe they should lay off the booze.

“Basically, hypothetically.” There came the flick of a lighter and then a drifting wisp of cigarette smoke, and Josh said, “so, what about that DJ boy of yours?”

“What about him?”

“You're going to bring him along next week? Hypothetically speaking, if despite our better judgements and pounding hangovers we decided to go out drinking again?”

“I don't know,” and a part of Joe wanted to say yes, but then, he still felt like it would be awkward to have Rhys and Josh in the same room, even though there was no way that Rhys could actually know about Josh, and yeah, that was probably not the best reason he could give himself as to why he shouldn't invite Rhys along. “Bum me a fag, yeah?”

Josh tossed the packet of cigs onto Joe's chest, “there. I think you should bring him along, I like him.”

“You said he was flaming.”

“Yeah, he is. Fit, though.”

“Thought you had a girlfriend, you slag.”

“What, and that's why I'm not allowed to say that a guy's fit?” Josh asked, mock offended, and Joe also knew him well enough to know that he was probably rolling his eyes. “And I mean, me and Mike aren't exclusive or anything.”

“You mean the type of non-exclusivity that she actually knows about, or,” Joe trailed off and it sounded a bit more bitter than it should have done. He puffed his cigarette yet again.

“She knows. What do you even take me for?”

“I don't know, I always expect the worst of you. Thought you knew that.”

“You're a twat,” Josh said, but it was the affectionate type of 'twat', the type that got under Joe's skin and made him feel uncomfortable once again. “But no, back to the point, I like your DJ boy. He's really knowledgeable about music.”

“Yeah,” Joe replied, more of a breath than a proper word, really, and that sounded really stupid, but what else should he have said, “he really is.”

“You should try and pull. Could help.”

“Help with what?”

“You know.” Josh's voice had that tone in it that Joe knew very well, the exasperation that got into it whenever Josh was forced to explain a thing that seemed incredibly simple and obvious to him, whether it was basic physics or little things that lead to silly relationship quarrels, or later on in their relationship, not so little things that lead to not so silly quarrels. That tone of voice. “With those weird post-traumatic depressed phases you've been having where you sit in your room all day and smoke chain and play the sulkiest records you own. Bet a good shag could help that.”

“Yeah, well, whiskey helps with that, too.”

“You're not going to be hungover after shagging that DJ boy.”

Joe didn't say anything to that, just reached out to grope around on the bedside table for the ashtray that was sure to be somewhere there, and pushed out the butt of his fag.

“When was the last time you'd pulled, anyway?”

“Last time I pulled was you, fuck.”

“Fuck,” Josh agreed. “You're going to have to bring him along to our hypothetical night out next week now, you know.”

“You're more invested in me getting a shag than any best mate ever should be, you know that. Hey, pass me another fag.”

“There.”

“Thanks. Yeah, I'll bring it up when I see him on Monday I suppose.”

Monday, Joe didn't bring it up.

He sat through yet another boring meeting of Looking Forward and then spent another half hour, maybe, talking to Rhys at the side entrance, about gigs and friends and gigs of friends, about this record Rhys had just bought that he'd spent ages looking for, this party he'd been to on Saturday, and Joe had more than enough reasons to bring it up, to just say, “so, my mates are thinking about going out drinking this Friday, I was wondering if you'd like to come along, maybe?”

The point is, he didn't say it, and that was because he was getting lost in the conversation, didn't _think_ about bringing it up, definitely. Not because he was thinking about it the entire time but was too nervous to say it out loud, scared that just in case, Rhys would say no, or some other stupidly teenage angst reason. Not because he was scared Rhys would say yes, and that was another thing, the fact that he even liked Rhys, because he wasn't supposed to just go ahead and keep liking people like he would normally, and also, because of what had happened the last time he liked someone, fuck. Maybe that was turning out to be a real problem.

Another problem was that around that time, Rhys was becoming a regularity. A habit, something to look forward to at the start of every week, one hour worth of support group meetings and then twenty minutes, half an hour, maybe an hour worth of Rhys. He met Rhys' brother around two months after he'd first met Rhys, too, and now he joins them out at the side entrance some evenings, as well as the girl his age who'd also lost one eye in a car crash, a good friend, apparently. He likes those two, too, the girl's smart and funny, a creative writing student, apparently, and Rhys' brother has good enough taste in music, but not as much as he likes Rhys, and maybe that was where the problem really was.

Really, he isn't sure when he exactly realised the fact that he likes Rhys more than he should, it wasn't some sudden epiphany the way it happened in films, but rather a thing that just kind of crept up on him. A thing that he should have realised sooner, maybe, and that's what he tells his therapist, too, the week that Rhys asks him for his number, because, “I think I want to see you more often than just once a week, if that's okay with you?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn't it be okay?”

“I don't know, I don't know you like that. I figured it was the logical conclusion I should ask, though, I mean, we hang around here every week, and I really like you, and besides, I come on to you all the time anyway, so I figured we could go eat dinner sometime.” Rhys coughs, twice, and then says, “I don't mean a date or anything, just get some food. It doesn't have to be a date, unless you want it to be a date, in which case it's a date. I sound really stupid right now, don't I. Never mind.”

Joe laughs. He can't not laugh, not when Rhys is tripping over his words, almost embarrassing himself, really, and then he can't stop laughing.

“You're about to say no, right? Can we just pretend that I didn't say anything, please?” Rhys clears his throat, once again, and then says, “I know, I'm being a complete twat right now, sorry, but can you please at least stop laughing at me?”

Really, Joe has crossed that line from being amused to feeling this mix of embarrassment and pity, but it takes a few more seconds until he finally composes himself enough to actually stop laughing. “I'm sorry.” Then, “yeah, you really are a twat.”

“I'm sorry. Can we pretend that didn't happen?”

Joe coughs and lights himself another fag. “But yeah, why not.” Then he really processes what Rhys had just said, so he adds, “I mean, about going out for food. Not about pretending that didn't happen, because I'd really like to go eat dinner with you sometime.”

“You're not fucking with me right now?”

“Why would I be fucking with you?”

“Because I'm a complete twat, maybe.” Rhys laughs and flicks his lighter, and then says, “I mean, I'd reject me.”

“Fair enough. I like when you act like a twat, though, it's endearing.” All right, that's definitely veering into “coming on to Rhys”-territory again, but Joe figures that's more than okay to do right now. “And I mean, you're right, we've spent more than enough time talking every week, and I really like talking to you, as well, and we're coming on to each other all the time, anyway, so I guess it's the logical conclusion.”

That exact phrase is also the phrase he uses when he's talking to Dr. Beaker about this, about the fact that he may or may not have a thing for Rhys.

“I guess it's just the logical conclusion that I'd end up liking him. I mean, obviously, he's the only one other than Tom and Josh who I really willingly spend time with, and I like my mates, but they've both got girlfriends, so it's awkward.”

A short scrawl of a pen, and then Dr. Beaker's voice comes, “you said Joshua was your ex, right?”

“Yeah, that's him.”

She makes a short noise of understanding, then asks, “I don't want to digress from the topic too much, but can I ask why your relationship ended?”

“I broke it off.” Joe takes a deep breath and craves a fag. This is the type of stuff he doesn't like to talk about, or even think about, unless he's in one of those phases where he lies in bed all day because the world is full of shit. “Around the beginning of this year, because he'd been shagging this girl behind my back and apparently he thought that was okay because we never said that it wasn't an open relationship. Not like being exclusive is a norm or anything like that, and now I guess he's still shagging her and we're still friends because he's been my best mate since school and I can't hate him enough to stop being friends with him.” He doesn't realise how much he dreads those thoughts until he's said the last part out loud, almost spat it, really.

While the pen is still scrawling noisily onto paper, Dr. Beaker starts, “so would you say that you're over that past relationship?”

Joe swallows and begins drumming his fingers against his knuckles once more, a simple beat at first. He's more than aware of the fact that his answer should be yes, that he should have gotten over Josh by now, because they'd broken up in what, January, and it's October now. The thing is, it still stings, that Josh of all people could have cheated on him for months on end, that he has the nerve to still be Joe's best mate and act like it never happened, and maybe the worst, that he's still with that girl because apparently she doesn't care how much of a cunt her boyfriend can be at times. He doesn't say that, though, instead he just shrugs. “Not really, I suppose, it's still really weird. Being around him.”

There's that soft understanding noise again, but no scrawling pen, and Joe figures that means he can continue.

“I miss him, sometimes. The him from before he started shagging that girl, I mean.”

Then it's there, the pen scrawls and Dr. Beaker says, “ah. The young man you'd met at your support group, what did you say his name was again?”

“It's Rhys.” Joe is almost completely certain what question is about to follow, so he continues, “yeah, I've thought about that possibility. That maybe I only like him because he's the first guy to show me any sort of attention since Josh, that I'm kind of love-starved so I'll just latch onto anyone.”

“Well, Joseph.” Joe hates that, the way she says his name, somehow sounding like his mum and one of his old teachers at the same time. “That's pretty much exactly what I was going to ask, whether there's a possibility that you could be attracted to Rhys solely as a coping mechanism. You're very self-aware.”

“My sister told me about that once, after me and Josh broke up. She read it in a magazine, I think.”

There's a small pause, during which the pen scrawls, and Joe feels like he should say something else, about Rhys, probably. “I'm not sure if it's just that, though. The coping thing, because I think I also like him for reasons that aren't the fact that he's always coming on to me. Because he's really talkative and he gets so excited about things that it makes me happy just listening and he's kind of charming but also so awkward that it's kind of funny.” He can feel the skin on his face burning with blood rushing there, wow, that was kind of. Yeah, he definitely likes Rhys a lot more than he should. “I sound like such a girl.”

Dr. Beaker is kind enough to ignore that fact. “Do you feel like your mental state has improved since you met him?”

“Guess so. I mean, I've still got days where I think the world is shite, but I don't do that thing any more where I stay in bed for days being miserable. I haven't done that in over a month.” Joe is tempted to add that the main reason he's this positive about life right now is just that he gets to see Rhys every week, that it's the main thing to look forward to, but he figures that wouldn't sound particularly healthy. “I guess that means I do like him a lot, I wish I could see him sometime. With my eyes, I mean.”

“You know what I've told you about your missing body parts.”

“Yeah, I know. One of the first steps to coping with them is that I need to adjust to that they're gone.” The heat of blood rushing below the skin burns in his cheeks, again, or still, and Joe actually feels ashamed. That is, for still wanting his normal life from Before The Accident back, not for liking Rhys that much. Well, that too, but. “It's pretty hard, though.”

“Coping's always hard.” Dr. Beaker clears her throat and then says, “I'm not sure if I told you this yet, but I don't recommend that you start a relationship before you're further ahead in the psychological healing process. When they're still in this vulnerable state of mind, some people have this tendency to get overly attached to one person and let that person take them over, centre their whole life around that one person.”

“I don't think I've heard that before.” Joe swallows around the empty air in his throat. He really needs that fag. “You've also told me that another part of the coping process is to get on with normal life. That includes a relationship, I think.” It comes out sounding almost childish, like he doesn't want to understand what she's saying, maybe, and he really doesn't.

“Yes, but I've also told you that it's a very long process. You can't expect your life to get better just because you're going out with Rhys.”

“I never said that I was going to get better just like that. Just, I figured that maybe a relationship could make coping easier, because you've actually got a reason to get better. And because I think if he really cares, Rhys is going to want me to get better, too.” He exhales, deeply, and still feels kind of like an idiot.

“I guess that's another aspect that you have to think about.” The pen scratches down loudly into the paper, and then the therapist says, “I still don't condone it, though. I think you should wait with getting into a relationship until you're more stable, both in regards to your coping process and your getting over your last relationship.”

“I don't know,” Joe says, because he doesn't, really. “I'm probably going to try either way. Just to see if it could work out.” He lowers his voice, without meaning to, when he says, “I really want it to help,” and then immediately feels a bit stupid for that.

“Well. You know you can always come to me when it doesn't.” She smacks her lips softly, the way she does when she's done talking about one subject, Joe has noticed that. “How's your family these days, Joseph?”

The day after that appointment is a Friday, and it's also when Joe tells Josh. Another thing that's become a regularity, ever since that first night out at Rhys' DJ set and then the night the week after, it's that at least once a week, they get rip roaring drunk. Tom joins them, sometimes, and some of those times he insists on bringing Izzy with him, and then Josh's girlfriend tags along, too, which is both more and less awkward when everyone is drunk. More often than not, though, it's just Joe and Josh, making their way through various bars and clubs where Josh is more than willing to buy Joe drinks, awful fruity-sugary cocktails and whiskey cola and vodka on the rocks until he's too smashed to form proper thoughts. It always ends the same way, Saturday morning, Joe wakes up somewhere in Josh's flat, on the kitchen floor or the sofa or in Josh's bed, more than once squished between him and his girlfriend, at that, and usually, they spend the rest of that Saturday getting drunk once again. It's the kind of thing that Joe really doesn't mind becoming a habit.

That particular Friday night is a quiet night. They're in Josh's bedroom, because there's no decent gigs on that weekend and everyone else is busy. Also, because it's been at least three months since Joe last got around to dyeing his hair, and since he's always ended up making a horrible mess in the bathtub with that, eyes or not, he figured he might as well get Josh to do it for him. Like old times, kind of, but a lot more awkward.

So, they're sitting on Josh's bed, Joe in nothing more than briefs and a t-shirt which may or may not also be one he'd stolen from Josh, his hair still a bit damp, and they're both drunk and steadily getting drunker.

By the time Joe finally decides that maybe he should bring up Rhys, the bottle of Jack Daniels they're sharing is nearly empty. He's not entirely sure what they're talking about or how they got there, something about acid, and then that stupid thing Tom did the last time they were out, that he offered to sell his stash of vintage porn for a few tablets of ecstasy and half a bottle of Tequila.

“I don't remember that,” Joe says and takes another swig of the bottle before passing it over to Josh.

“Must have been really drunk by that time, then.”

Joe shrugs, since that sounds like a very likely option. “I'm always drunk. Must have been that.” Josh knocks the cool glass of the bottle against his leg, and he takes it back, only to find it empty. “You have any more booze?”

“Wine. I've got that, I think, but it's Mike's.” The bed squeaks loudly, and Josh adds, “I mean, we can drink it either way, I'll go out to the shop tomorrow and buy her a new bottle so she won't notice. I could do that.”

“Wine's boring. Not worth it.” Joe says, “you can't get pissed off wine.”

“We already are. Pissed.” Josh laughs, that unpleasant fake giggle he has that just gets more unpleasant when he's drunk. “You know of anything we can do that's not boring, then?”

“Not really.” Then Joe can't think of anything else to say, so he just says the thing that seems like he should be saying it, “did I tell you yet that I gave Rhys my number this week?”

“You haven't. And?”

“Yeah, I gave Rhys my number and he wants to eat dinner with me some point.”

“Fuck.”

“What do you mean, fuck?”

“So you really do like him.”

“I guess I do, yeah.”

“You met him at a support group. Are you sure he's not secretly some psycho wreck who lures young boys to his house to make lampshades out of their skin?”

“It's a support group for traumatic eye injuries. And I met him there because his brother goes there.” Joe wants to reach for the bottle of whiskey again before he remembers it's empty. “I thought you'd said you wanted me to pull him. You even said that he's fit.”

“Yeah, he is, but I thought you were just going to fuck him a couple times to get rid of all that sexual frustration you'd built up since the last time you got a shag. Not that you were actually gonna go out with him.”

Joe laughs. “I like how you're as drunk as I am and you say things like sexual frust. Fuss. fuck, you know what I mean.”

“I'm a really eloquent drunk.”

“And yeah, well, not all of us think it's okay to just go around shagging random people for fun.”

There's that drunken giggle again, and then Josh says, “you sound upset.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not upset. What's that you were saying about that wine?”

An hour later or so, the wine is gone as well. Joe is lying on his back, doing what would be staring at the ceiling, and he's completely sure that if he stood up right now, he'd fall over pretty much the same second. There's the soft sounds of some 80s record that Josh had put on for some reason some minutes earlier, and that just makes him feel even drunker, somehow, the floaty sounds of shoegaze.

“Hey, Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“You ever think about? Think back to last year?”

“Last year, that's a pretty broad statement.” Joe is, at this point, not sure if he's playing dumb or not.

“You know, last year. Us. You ever miss that?”

“I guess, sometimes. I miss when you weren't a cunt who couldn't keep it in his trousers.”

Then Josh is laughing, again, not the shrieking laugh, but his quiet one. “I can't believe you're still mad at me for that,” he says, and it sounds like genuine disbelief, like he really doesn't understand this kind of thing, and Joe isn't sure if he wants to make a snide remark or not.

There's a long pause, and again, Joe feels like he can't possibly be drunk enough.

“I think about that sometimes. About shagging you.” One of Josh's large hands lands on his thigh, heavy and warm and rough with callouses. “I'd fuck you right now, you're hot like this.”

The problem with not being entirely over Josh is, with the fact that okay, maybe Joe had spent more time thinking back to fucking Josh than he should. Only due to a lack of other things to wank over, but still. The problem is that now, Josh's drunk voice slurring about fucking and that stupid hand that's running its stupid long fingers over his thigh, those fingers that he knows for fact are very good at certain things, that's enough to make Joe shiver and his breath catch in his throat for a split second.

“Hot. I have glass marbles for eyes and scars all over my face.”

“I could always do you from behind. Just, hold you down and fuck you into the mattress like that. Problem solved.”

Joe laughs and hopes that it hides how much he likes the thought of that, of just letting Josh take control and fuck him senseless.

“What, are you saying you don't want my dick?”

“I don't know,” Joe says, and yeah, that's probably the wrong answer. “I mean, you've got a girlfriend, and I've got.”

“I told you, me and Mike have an open relationship type thing. And I mean, if things with Rhys really work out, I don't really want him to be the first guy who fucks you in what, nearly a year. I think I heard somewhere if you don't have sex for a really long time it starts to grow back. Your virginity, I mean.”

“I don't think there's anything in my arse that can really grow back.”

“Shush, I'm trying to pull you here, Joseph. Play along.”

Then Josh's bare legs are touching his, and Joe isn't entirely sure when that happened, whether Josh has been lying half on top of him for a long time. That hand is still on the inside of his thigh, inching a bit closer to his crotch now, and Josh's breath is hot in his face, the smell of alcohol. Josh's mass amount of thick hair is in his face, too, still stinking a bit of dye and bleach, and the problem with all of that is, Joe can't possibly not want Josh when he's got Josh right in his face.

“Well, then. You should take my virginity. Again.” And Joe starts laughing once more, even when he's trying to stay his hardest to keep a straight face just for the sake of it, and then he has to stop laughing because Josh is kissing him, all sharp teeth and snarling tongue, and that hand slips from his thigh further up, first to palm him through his briefs and then to reach inside and grab hold of his cock.

What Joe likes about sex with Josh, what he's always liked, is the fact that Josh is the same way about sex as he is about everything else, animalistic and a bit unpredictable, but with some sort of deeply within underlying logic. He's always been violent about it, likes to bite and scratch and suck bruises into Joe's neck, sink his teeth down until it hurts and Joe can feel the skin being pierced, feel little droplets of blood leaking out. Honestly, even when he used to complain and tell Josh to stop, that really hurts, he doesn't mind now, lets Josh pull his shirt off and lick and bite all over his chest and suck at his nipples. He lets Josh grip him by the hips and dig his nails deep into the flesh there, lets him grind his hips down until he's so eager for it it almost aches.

By the time Josh finally beckons him to turn over, Joe is begging for it, rolling his hips and scratching down Josh's back, and fuck. He knew before that he'd missed this, wanted this, but he didn't know how desperate he was for it until now, not just for Josh, but for sex in general. Like maybe he'd forgotten just how good it feels, because as soon as Josh is pressing his two fingers slick with lube into him, Joe is tensing up and gasping and biting his lip. Then, when Josh is fucking him, arms around his waist and thrusting so quickly it makes his head spin, he can't do much other than jerk his cock and stammer out begs of, “fuck, harder, like this, yeah, please.”

Yeah, Joe lets Josh fuck him into the mattress just like he said he would, and after, when they're done and sticky with various bodily fluids and curled up against each other, Joe is on the verge of passing out and feels like he's become unravelled, just all open and undone and happy, and maybe he should listen to Josh more often, maybe he just really needed a good shag.

He wakes up the next morning with a sore arse and a pounding head, to a toasty-warm bed and Josh's sleeping body curled around him, and right then decides that he should never, ever listen to anything Josh says ever again. The room feels like it's spinning, the way it does during a particularly nasty hangover, and Joe's stomach swirls and stirs and, fuck, that's probably a sign he should get up. He manages to disentangle himself from the arm around his waist and then stumbles into the bathroom and makes it to kneeling in front of the toilet, just in time before the inevitable happens and it all comes back up his throat. It's stinging and sour-bitter and choking him up just a little bit, and judged by the stench of it, most of it is alcohol, and it goes on for ages, or at least that's what it feels like.

It's the most undignified thing Joe feels like he's ever done, puking his guts out while naked and hungover, and also, he kind of laments that Josh isn't there to pat his back and hold his hair.

When it's over, Joe picks himself up off the floor, and even now with the heavy taste of vomit making his tongue feel gross and fuzzy, he feels slightly better. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, at least he didn't get hit by any backsplash, and then pisses and flushes the toilet twice, even though the gargle of it aches in his brain. He's almost certain his dick is still aching as well, or maybe he's imagining that, or maybe that's just because all parts of him are aching equally. After he swallows a mouthful of tap water and gargles with more mouthwash than he'd ever thought he would have to, he stumbles back into the bedroom and curls himself into Josh, who's still snoring softly and mumbling incomprehensible fragments of sentences in his sleep.

Seriously, fuck that guy and his terrible suggestions, he must have had just as much as Joe to drink and yet he's not puking his guts out, and also, he doesn't have to deal with a stinging arsehole or the bruises that are no doubt scattered all over Joe's body, a dead give away for “has slept with animal-Josh”. On the plus side, though, he's warm, so warm that it makes the goosebumps all over Joe's naked body melt away almost instantly, and when Joe slips under the duvet, he's pulling him close, so close that Joe can smell last night's sweat and sex and feel the dry strands of messy hair tickle at his face.

It's the familiar kind of warmth and closeness that makes it impossible not to fall asleep again, so Joe does, and the next time he wakes up, he doesn't feel nearly as dead as the first time. The bed is still just as warm as it was, but now the other side of it is empty, and half of Joe is relieved, because the last thing he'd want to do this early in the morning is having to discuss last night with Josh, but then, the other half kind of wishes Josh was there so Joe could make fun of him for his hungover grumpy demeanour.

Also, maybe Joe gets a bit clingy when he's hungover, but then, it's slightly more bearable with a warm body next to him, okay?

He rolls over and smells what Josh smells like, sex and alcohol and hair products, and wonders if this is what regret would smell like if it had a smell. There's the faint scent of coffee brewing somewhere in there, too, so when Josh enters the room, he's not entirely surprised, nor displeased when there's a shove at his shoulder and Josh says, “move over, drunkard. I brought you coffee and painkillers.”

Joe sits up and accepts the cup, still steaming hot, but he swallows the paracetamol that Josh hands over to him and then takes a few long sips from his coffee.

“Thanks, mate.”

“How's your hangover?”

“Fuck. Don't want to talk about it.”

Josh laughs, the unpleasant fake one that feels like nails-on-chalkboard in Joe's hungover ears. “How's your arse?”

“Fuck off.” Joe groans and rolls his head back against the pillow that's all disgusting with sweat, and that's probably even worse than the smell of it, how gross the sheets are. He's pretty sure there's sticky splatters of come drying on the bottom of his stomach, too, he really needs a shower. “Why are you not hungover, anyway? You've had just as much as me.”

“I'm hungover like fuck.” Josh flicks his lighter twice. “Not my fault you're such a lightweight.”

“Hey, pass me a fag. I'm no fucking lightweight.”

“Yeah, you are. Here.” Josh places the filter of one cigarette between Joe's lips, and Joe accepts and takes a big drag. The bitter flavour of nicotine seeps down into his lungs and clears his brain, just a little more, and then Josh continues, “so, last night, then, eh.”

Joe hates this part, always hated these weird morning afters, the one that followed the very first time he'd shagged Josh, ones that he'd woken up to find more people than just Josh in bed with them, the gross ones at the very end, after he'd found out that Josh was fucking a girl on the side, when he found himself in an empty bed with scratch marks on his back and bruises and bite marks all over his chest and neck.

This is the worst, yet, though, because it's after everything, and now he's the one who's getting fucked on the side by Josh, which is probably the last thing he'd ever wanted to happen. He really hates irony, and he's got this regret that makes him want to apologise for everything, for being too drunk to just say no, and to say that it probably shouldn't happen again, because, fuck, but at the same time, he's also regretting the fact that he even has to hear this, that he didn't fuck off true walk of shame style while Josh was still asleep. His tongue suddenly seems too big and clumsy for his mouth, though, too swollen and heavy-fat to form any words, so he doesn't say anything.

“That was good,” Josh continues, “real good. You're still a good shag, you know that.”

Joe feels this weird mixture of wanting to say “thanks” and to punch Josh in the mouth.

“You wanna do it again?” and the problem with that is, on some deep twisted level in the pit of his gut, yes, Joe does want to do it again, even now that he's sobered up.

“What, you mean like, a second round?” He takes a deep drag from his cig and says, “because my head hurts and I need a shower and I don't think I want to take anything up my arse for the next three days or so.”

Josh laughs, far too long and loud for it to be anything but unpleasant and mocking, and then he says, “fuck. No, I actually meant more in general, some kind of best mates with benefits deal, I guess.”

“What, so Mike isn't enough for you any more?”, and yeah, that came out far more bitter than what would have been reasonable, but then, it's not like Joe hasn't been on the other end of this type of deal yet.

“I told you, it's not like that. She's gonna be okay with it when I tell her.”

Joe shrugs and lets the ash from his fag drop down onto the bedspread. He feels too naked to discuss this kind of thing, suddenly, even when the sheets are pulled up to his waist. “I don't know,” he says, breathes it out, really, and that's probably still not the right thing he should be saying to Josh.

“You're thinking of Rhys right now, right?”

“Not really,” because no, he doesn't, Joe has kind of been too busy being hungover and confused to remember that Rhys is even a factor in this now.

“I guess we could always stop. If you and he end up getting serious, I mean.”

“We've not even started anything yet.”

“I think last night counts as starting.”

“I don't know.” Joe turns his head, away from where Josh's voice is coming from. It's some sort of symbolic gesture, he supposes. “I need a shower.”

“Then take a shower.”

“I meant at my house.”

“Oh.” There's a short pause, the pregnant, heavy kind of pause, and Joe doesn't want to say something. Then Josh's voice is back, “so. What are you doing next week?”

“I'm not sure yet. I mean, Mondays is my support group and Thursday I've got my therapist appointment. And Rhys is going to take me out for food, I guess, but he's not called me about that yet.”

“Right. Your dinner date.”

“Yeah.”

“You should tell me when you know what day it is, come over to mine after.”

“Come over yours for what?”

“I don't know. Drinks if it goes well. And if it doesn't go well, we can see.”

And the problem is, Joe still can't really disagree with Josh, no matter what, and besides, the promise of alcohol and possibly sex is entirely too convincing. “Then it's a deal.”

“Great.” Then Josh is close again, too close, probably, and one of his arm is across Joe's chest, that hand in the crook of Joe's elbow. “Hey, come here, yes?”

Joe turns his head, since there's really not any noteworthy distance between them, and when he opens his mouth, not entirely sure what he's planning to say, Josh is kissing him again, about as soft and careful as he can manage, which still isn't very careful. He bites at Joe's bottom lip a bit, which, come to think of it, yeah, it still feels a bit bruised from last night, sinks the very points of his canines into it and tugs, and that's both painful and incredibly hot at once.

When they pull apart, Josh makes a sound of disgust, and then says, “gross, you taste like hangover.”

“What's hangover even supposed to taste like?”

“I don't know. Like you just had a cocktail of coffee and listerine, served with a single cigarette floating in it.”

Joe laughs, he can't not, he laughs until it starts to rattle in his head and make his hungover headache act up again. Josh's breath is still floating over his face, smelling very much like what Joe must taste like, but without the sharp listerine in it, and then, because it's uncomfortable to just listen to Josh breathe, to his heartbeat where their chests are pushed together, he says, “fuck, I've got to get home.”

“Oh. I put your pants with the rest of your clothes, if you're wondering.”

Joe takes his time with untangling himself from Josh and the duvet, and when he sits up and then stands up, he can feel the nausea pool in his stomach again, just a bit, though. He makes his way over to the chair in one corner where he'd folded up all his clothes the previous evening, and when he steps into his pants and struggles to pull his skinny trousers all the way up his legs, a sharp ache shoots through him, and he must have twitched or made a face, because Josh says, “you sure you don't want me to bring you home or anything?”

“Don't make this weirder than it already is.” Joe reaches for his shirt and slips it on, starts buttoning it from the bottom up, and says, “I hope you didn't give me any bruises on my neck. Going to be weird to explain these to Rhys.”

“You could just wear a scarf, you know. It's cold out.”

“Yeah, but restaurants are warm. I'm going to sweat my arse off in front of Rhys and he's going to tell me to take it off except I can't.”

“You're ridiculous. Could always wear a turtleneck.”

“Yeah, well, I'm allowed to be.” Joe tugs his jeans further up, past his shirt tails, and buckles his belt. He pulls his dark glasses on, and then, he's ready. “And I'm not that gay.”

“Like hell you aren't.” Josh laughs. “Mate, you look rough right now.”

“I feel rough.” Joe turns and makes his way over to the door of the flat where he'd left his shoes and his cane. He feels like he should say something else, some parting words, and says in the vague direction of the bedroom, “so. I guess I'll call you when I know about next week, then? The Rhys thing?”

“Yeah, sure. The Rhys thing,” Josh's voice comes, sounding already a bit disinterested, and Joe guesses that he's going to pull the duvet over his head and sleep until Sunday morning soon, like he always does after nights out.

He doesn't end up finding out more about the Rhys thing until Monday evening when he actually sees Rhys in person, after he'd spent the rest of the weekend holed up in his room with some records that Rhys had recommended to him, because even now, his head was still buzzing so much that the only thing he could possibly stomach was fuzzy psychedelic groove. Certainly had nothing to do with the fact that this was also the kind of music that Rhys kept going on about. No.

His mum came down to the basement a number of times, to ask him if he was getting into one of those phases again, if she should call Dr. Beaker’s office for an emergency appointment, but he just rolled over and shook his head, mumbled something about being hungover and having a headache.

Sunday, sometime in the morning, his mum asked, “still?”

“Still. I don't think I'm going to ever drink that much again in my life.”

“You always say that. You know what I think about this.”

Then, because Joe just knew what was about to come, the old speech about teen drinking and responsibility and gateway drugs and other things that she probably doesn't really understand because she most likely hasn't touched any mind-altering substances since before he'd even been conceived, he cut her off, “mum, I'm nineteen years old.”

“You are, yes, but you're also my son. This is my job.” He had this desire to roll his eyes, except, right, so instead he just curled into a ball and mumbled something along the lines of “leave me alone, I'm tired,” and then went back to sleep for another couple of hours.

Izzy came down into his room that Sunday around noon, too, with coffee and aspirin, and judged by her voice she was in a similarly shitty state. “Hey. You still hungover?”

“Yeah, fuck. How about you, you sound all tired.”

“Hungover too. I'm never letting Tom talk me into mixed drinks again.”

Joe laughed and reached for his fags. “Yeah, well, you generally shouldn't listen to Tom. When did you even get home tonight?”

“I don't know. Four, five. I had to walk all the way from Tom's in heels because he was too smashed to drive me back.”

“Fucking Tom. And you woke me up in the middle of the night.”

“Sorry about that. Since you're talking about fucking Tom...”

“Gross. Don't even go there,” Joe cut her off. He cringed a bit, since he really didn't want to hear about Tom fucking anyone, regardless of whether or not that someone happened to be his sister or not.

“You shagged Josh again, didn't you,” Izzy finished, and made it sound like a question when it wasn't really a question, and almost, it sounded like she was trying to make him feel guilty. Not like he hadn't already been confused and guilty enough the morning he woke up next to Josh, no.

Joe had the desire to make some sort of comment on how that was even grosser than having to hear about Tom's sex life, that she was even remotely invested in his own, but he couldn't really think of one. So he just shrugged and said, “guess I did,” because really, he would have to own up to that to someone sooner or later.

“Gross.”

“How do you even tell? That's creepy as fuck.”

“Well, you've got a fat bruise on your neck, it's kind of obvious. Looks like you've been attacked by a wild animal.”

“Fuck.” Joe reached one hand up to his neck, moved his fingers, and yeah, there it was, sore skin with a deep ache underneath it, right on the side of his throat where it was obvious for everyone to see.

So that's why, Monday evening, he's sitting in St Sebastian's yet again, a thick scarf wrapped around his neck. At least it's almost November, so it's more than cold enough for him to have an excuse to wear that thing outside. Still, though, they'd been turning the heating all the way up for the past few weeks, so now he's warm, too warm under the layers of fabric, and he's pretty sure he's sweating all the way through the hour of Looking Forward.

Rhys doesn't seem to notice, though, or if he does, he doesn't say so when he scoots his chair up next to Joe's and hands him a plastic cup of support-group-quality coffee. Joe accepts, even though the stuff is scorching hot and he's already more than hot enough.

Hot as in warm, he means.

“Hey.”

“Hi. How was your weekend?”

Joe swallows. “Didn't do much. Got drunk with Josh on Friday night and spent the rest of the weekend being hungover,” and it's totally okay that he's not telling the whole truth, because it's not like he and Rhys have gone anywhere yet, and besides, this isn't the type of thing he really wants to discuss in a room full of people old enough to be his parents.

Then Rhys laughs, light and easy, and says, “ouch. Feel better now?”

“Yeah. Now that you're here.”

“Coming on to me?”

“Naturally.”

Rhys coughs. “Sorry I didn't call you all week, by the way. It's just, I've been busy.”

“It's okay, I don't mind.” Then Joe realises what that sounds like, so he says, “I mean, I wouldn't mind if you called me, either, but I'm not going to be insulted if you forget or anything,” and _then_ he realises how much he sounds like a teenage girl saying that, so he adds, “sorry, I sound like an idiot.”

“It's okay.” Rhys laughs and nudges his shoulder, which isn't a long way, they're sitting so close that their knees touch, and, oh. When did that happen?

Not that Joe especially minds or anything.

“What have you been so busy with, then?”

“Work, you know. This guy got sacked at my record shop so now I've got to work his shift until they find someone new.”

“Oh.” That's probably not the most eloquent answer Joe could have given, so he adds, “that blows.”

“Yeah, it kind of does, but I went to three different record fairs over the weekend, so that was pretty good, you know.”

“Do you ever do anything that doesn't involve records?”

“I'm not doing anything involving records right now, am I?”

“You're talking to me about records.”

“Yeah, fair enough.” Rhys is laughing again, so close that Joe can't just hear it but also feel it, the way his arm that's pushed against Joe's shakes a bit with it. There's a small pause, and then Rhys says, “I still think we should go to a record fair together at some point.” He pauses again, just a short second, and adds, “I mean, I could read out the album titles and artists and stuff for you, if you want.”

“Yeah.” Joe coughs and isn't sure why, and he's not really sure whether he'd want that, either. To go to a record fair with Rhys, that is, because it's not like he's got anything against record fairs, or Rhys, but still, there's that muddle of confused feelings about shagging Josh and the fact that he's got some sort of date with Josh to shag him again, and isn't he supposed to be miserable anyway, and also, the fact that he likes Rhys more than he should which is probably more than Rhys likes him, in turn.

Joe really hates feelings, especially given the fact that he'd always been convinced that they stop being obtuse and complicated once he's past a certain age, but Rhys is warm and quiet next to him and it feels like the air between them is on fire. Maybe that means he should say something else. He really wants a fag right now, but outside is cold and unwelcoming, so he settles for taking a sip of his coffee. “Thought you were gonna take me out for food first.”

“Well, we could always go to the record fair and then get food.” Rhys is smiling, or at least that's what Joe wants to think. His voice sounds like he's smiling, at the very least. “But yeah, about the dinner thing, I was thinking Friday night, is that okay?”

It's more than okay, it's great, because that means he can go back to Josh's after and get rip roaring drunk without having to consider the fact that Josh has class the next morning, and that's probably not the kind of thing he should tell Rhys. Possibly, to get more than just drunk, too, and that's the kind of thing he definitely shouldn't tell Rhys. So he just says, “yeah, sounds good.”

Then he's looking for something else to talk about, to steer the conversation away from him and Rhys going on a date, a fucking date, and that's the kind of excitement that he's probably too old for, but then, he hasn't been on a date since Josh, and that's another thing he wants to not talk about, anything concerning Josh. So he remembers sometime last week, when he and Izzy went over to Tom's place and they all sat on the living room carpet smoking a spliff and eating Chinese, and Tom put on this electronic record that he'd found at a flea market, so Joe asks Rhys if he'd ever heard of that band, tells him that story and shares some choice quotes from “things Tom says when he's high”, and Rhys laughs and then the conversation goes from there to other stupid friends they'd done while high, things friends had said, drugs in general, anything, really. It's easy, and comfortable, and it takes Joe's mind off the nervousness coiling in the pit of his gut for a while.

That nervousness returns, though, when Joe is taking the bus back home later that night and figures he might as well tell Josh about Friday night. He digs his phone from his shirt pocket, says, “call Josh Hayward,” into it, and he waits for the other end of the line to pick up. Four dial tones, and with every beep he's got this itching to just put the phone down and forget about it. About Josh, because that would be one problem less, but then, Joe has always been bad at saying no to Josh, and even worse when sex is involved, so he doesn't hang up.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” It comes out heavier than he really means to, and Joe half hopes Josh doesn't notice it, except it's Josh, so he most likely will.

“Are you hungover or is your arse still sore?”

Joe laughs and says, “what do you mean?” This time, it's less heavy, but that's still how he feels, kind of, a weird mix of crummy-heavy and that itching lightness of nervousness.

“You sound like you're in pain.”

“I'm not in pain.”

“Like someone pissed in your cornflakes, then.”

Joe shrugs, even though Josh obviously can't see it, and says, “So, about the Rhys thing.”

“The Rhys thing,” Josh repeats, and it doesn't sound like hard feelings or anything, but there's some sort of anticipation within it. It makes Joe want to vomit.

“Yeah, so we're going out Friday night.” He waits for a second, swallows for no reason, and then says, “still want me to come over yours after?”

“Yeah, why not.” It's that fake sort of casualness in his voice that makes Joe's throat clench again, that makes him half wonder and half not want to know what Josh is going to say next. “Got to break you in before you and Rhys get serious, or?”

He laughs, can't help himself from it, and yeah, that's pretty much what he was hoping for, the prospect of sex, but then, he also kind of hates himself for it a little. “Yeah, that's basically the gist of it.”

“Great. So, see you on Friday, then?”

“Friday.”

“And remember, don't fuck Rhys on the first date. You've got standards.”

“Bye, Josh.”

When Joe has his appointment with Dr. Beaker that Thursday, he tells her about Friday night as well, that is, the Rhys thing. Not Josh, because for one, he feels conflicted enough about that without having Dr. Beaker talk to him about emotional instability and rash decisions and unhealthy needs for physical closeness and all those other things that she'd undoubtedly talk about, and yeah, maybe Joe is starting to get a little bit self-aware. Also, reason number two, he doesn't really feel the need to talk about his best friend turned boyfriend turned best friend turned fuck buddy to his therapist. The reason he goes there is for dealing with physical and emotional trauma, not with relationships, for fuck's sake.

Never mind the fact that what he's actually doing is still very much “talking about relationships”, since his first answer to Dr. Beaker's question how his week was is, “I'm going out to dinner with Rhys tomorrow evening.”

Her first reaction is, “oh.” A short pen scrawl, and then she says, “so, what do you think about that, then?”

A thing that Joe absolutely hates about Dr. Beaker at times, it's those questions about how he feels and what he thinks, the ones that curl under his skin and tug at his brain and at his guts. They're actually less terrible when he's got a down day, when all he wants to say about his life and his feelings is that everything is shit. But then there's questions like that, the ones that force him to talk about all those things that he feels stupid for just for feeling them in the first place, confusion and itching anxiety and other things that are far too much like teenage angst.

Joe really fucking hates having feelings.

“I don't know,” he says, “I guess I'm nervous as hell. I mean, I haven't really gone out-gone out with anyone since I broke it off with Josh, so that's probably normal.”

“Do you mean nervous as in the fear of impending failure?”

“Huh?”

“Are you scared that something will go wrong, that you'll do the wrong thing tomorrow and ruin it? Is that why you're feeling nervous now?”

“I don't know,” Joe repeats, and that's another thing he hates about this sort of conversation, that he just doesn't have enough words to explain the mess of emotions that twist in his guts. “I guess I'm not really thinking about stuff that could go wrong, I'm just scared that it will be.” He pauses for a second and drums the fingers of his one hand over the ridge of knuckles on the other and waits for the word to come back to him. “Awkward, maybe. Like I wouldn't know what to say or just not say anything at all and then he'll think I'm an idiot and won't want to take me out again.” Then he's feeling like a lovesick teenager yet again, so he shakes his head and adds, “I sound like such a twat, I know.”

Dr. Beaker coughs. “How long have you known Rhys, now?”

“Five months, maybe.”

“Well then, if it makes you feel better, I think if he's known you for this long he's not going to mind too much even if something ends up going wrong.”

“I just really want Rhys to like me, I guess.” Joe sinks a little deeper into the upholstery of the armchair, feels the matted suede press onto his skin even through the thin fabric of the shirt he's wearing, and it only makes him feel more uncomfortable than the subject matter already is. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

The pen scrawls, and then Dr. Beaker says, “not a problem. Did anything else happen that you'd prefer to talk about?”

So Joe talks about the rest of his week, as far as he can without mentioning Josh, tells her about the progress he's been making with reading Braille and that he's thinking about finding a job sometime in a couple of months, maybe. It's easy conversation, talking about things that he's vaguely thought about and that his mum constantly brings up at the dinner table and about everyday things, answering simple questions, and by the time that he's taking the bus back home, he's almost forgotten that he's supposed to be nervous.

The problem with being nervous, though, it's a gross emotion that hangs around the back of Joe's brain even when he's thought it had gone away, like a primal instinct he can't turn off or maybe some nasty sexually transmitted disease. So by the time that it's Friday evening, he's returned to having it itch at the inside of his guts.

Rhys had called him a few days earlier, told him about the restaurant he wanted to go and how to get there, that he'd pick him up at the bus stop at half eight, but still, Joe spends a good part of Friday afternoon lying in his bed and smoking and pretending that that's most certainly not because he's kind of freaking out. He doesn't have that uncomfortable teenage pre-first date panic fizzing in his stomach and in his lungs, no, and that's definitely not the reason why he spends a stupid amount of time straightening his hair and calls Izzy over to his room so she can help him pick out a shirt. Because that's perfectly normal behaviour for someone of his age and gender, and also, in his defence, the last time he'd gone out on a date with someone who wasn't also his best mate was when he was sixteen fucking years old, so he's kind of got to make a decent impression.

Maybe he should have waited with actually putting the shirt on again, though, because until it's time for him to leave the house, Joe ends up in his bed once again, crumpling the fabric and letting some of the ash drip down onto his chest, so that's probably not the best impression he could be making, but still, by the time he realises that he's already waiting at the bus stop for Rhys and he figures if he goes back home to change now he'll be late, and why does he always have to be so stupidly fussy about things, anyway. Rhys gets there soon enough, at least.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Rhys pulls Joe close for a second, wraps both arms around his shoulders and presses a kiss to his cheek, and that's nice, if “nice” is even the right word for that, well, it makes the nervousness fade out a little, Joe supposes. So he reaches out and rings his arms around Rhys' waist as well, feels him all warm in his grip, and yeah, the first thing he notices is, “nice” is not nearly enough to describe what this is like. It's pretty great, kind of. The second thing he notices is how small Rhys is, smaller than he would have thought and smaller than Joe himself, too. That's also pretty great in a weird way.

They move apart after a few seconds, and then Rhys says, “you look all overdressed.”

“It's the ascot, isn't it?” Joe asks, and really, the ascot is a bit too much, but in his defence, he'd only put that on to hide the fading bruise on his neck, and besides, he'd borrowed it off Tom, either way. He laughs and hopes it makes him sound a bit less neurotic.

“Yeah.” Rhys laughs back. “It's good though, I like it. You look good.”

“Thanks.”

“So. Do you want to go get food then?”

“Yeah, why not.”

“Great,” Rhys says and links his fingers with Joe's. “I'm starving.”

It's a short walk from the bus stop to the place that Rhys had picked out, most of which Rhys spends chattering on about work, they've had a guy call in and ask for a job today, so hopefully Rhys is going to stop having to do double shifts, and Joe nods and listens and laughs at one point, and really, he's not all that nervous any more. This is pretty much just like every other time he'd been with Rhys, Rhys is overly talkative and flirty and the only major difference is the fact that they're apparently being serious about this right now, whatever this is.

Coming on to each other, maybe.

Rhys' hand is kind of clammy in Joe's, but it's still as soft as Joe remembers it and their fingers fit against each other snug and nice, so he doesn't let go until they reach the restaurant and Rhys finds them a table. Joe sits down in the booth and Rhys slides in next to him, so close their shoulders brush. It's all too close, but at the same time, it's really comfortable.

“So, this is good,” Rhys says, bright and quiet and happy, “I can't stand this sitting across. No room for my legs.” His one hand covers Joe's again and squeezes a bit. “So, do you already know what you want to eat or should I.” He pauses for a second. “Read the menu to you or something?”

“It's okay. I've been here before,” Joe says.

He really had, a year ago or so, but that was different. Well, of course it had been different, because that was when he still had eyeballs and because he'd been here with Josh, not Rhys, but also because that had been just weeks before he broke up with Josh, and, well. Ouch. He doesn't really want to think about that, so he turns to Rhys and says, “the chicken's pretty good, just so you know.”

“Great.” Rhys' thumb strokes over his knuckles, and his hand is warmer now, all of Rhys is warm on Joe's left side while on the right side, there's the cold coming from the window pane next to him.

“Do you want the window seat or? I mean, it's kind of pointless if I sit here. We can swap if you like.”

“It's perfect.” Rhys leans a little bit closer, which is about as close as Joe guesses he gets. “I like this view more.”

“What view?”

“You know, you.”

“Coming on to me yet again?”

“Well, this is a date.” Rhys moves back a little bit and says, “you look good, you know.”

“I think you said that before. But thanks.”

“I thought I should say it once more. Your hair looks nice, did you dye it again?”

“Yeah. Last weekend, actually.”

“Oh.” Rhys laughs. “I thought you'd dyed it when I saw it on Monday, but the lighting was really weird, so. But, like I'm saying, you look good.”

“Thanks.” Joe twists his fingers into Rhys' where both their hands are resting on the booth's upholstery, and he's beginning to feel kind of awkward. “I guess I should probably compliment you in return, but... you know.”

“It's okay.” Rhys is laughing yet again, quietly under his breath, so Joe laughs along. “I mean, you could say something about my cheekbones, for instance.”

“Why your cheekbones?”

“I've got great cheekbones.”

“Well, then. I like your cheekbones.”

“Thanks.”

“And I like that you aren't conceited at all.”

“It's not conceited,” Rhys says, mock insulted, “it's confident.”

“Well, then it's okay that you're bragging about your facial structure, I guess,” Joe says, and Rhys laughs quietly. For a few seconds there's silence, the comfortable type of silence, but still, the air almost crackles with the feeling that one of them should say something. “So, you doing anything this weekend?”

Then Rhys is back to chatting on and on about record fairs, about this friend of a friend who's got a gig next Sunday, “we should go together, you know. If you want to, I mean?”

“Yeah, why not,” Joe says and smiles, and somehow, from that, Rhys goes off on another tangent about bands, which is only interrupted by a waitress taking their order at one point. (Joe takes the chicken, naturally.)

They eat in silence, for the most part, and after, they split the bill and walk back to the bus stop together. Joe takes Rhys' hand again when they're through around half of the way there, and then they're sitting on the bench waiting for the bus to come, hands still linked, and Joe really doesn't want to let go. Wow, well.

After around ten seconds of awkward silence, after they'd been talking about this friend Rhys has who's in art school and also kind of trying to start a band, that Rhys is considering joining that band, and after neither of them knew what to say on that topic any more, Rhys says, “so.” He removes his hand from Joe's and flicks his lighter.

Joe says, “hey, bum me a fag, yes?”

“Yeah, sure.” Rhys coughs, and once he's placed the lit cig between Joe's lips, he goes back to holding his hand. “So. What I just wanted to say, I liked tonight.”

“Good.” Joe takes a deep drag, and yeah, that sounds kind of stupid, doesn't it. He adds, “me too, I mean.”

“Great.” Rhys laughs. “Hey, come here.”

“I'm already here.”

“Come a bit closer.”

So Joe does, move up the bench until his thigh is pressed against Rhys', and then Rhys' hand is on the back of his neck, tilting his head a bit, and Joe knows where this is going. Then they're kissing, slow and careful, and Rhys' lips are soft the way his hands are soft. The inside of his mouth is warm and soft, too, and Joe isn't really sure where he should put his free hand, so he moves it up to the side of Rhys' face.

It's over in a matter of seconds, and Joe's first thought is the same one that's been running through the back of his mind for most of the evening, some disorganised hormonal muddle of “wow”, “Rhys”, and “on a date with Rhys”. His second thought, well.

“Wow, you were right.”

“Right about what?”

“You do have great cheekbones.”

Rhys laughs, and it seems to ring through all of Joe, vibrate where they're still touching each other. “Thanks. Am I a good kisser, too?”

“I don't know,” Joe says, and he's not sure if he wants the nervous excitement that flutters in his lungs and his gut to go away or whether he likes it. He's pretty sure he likes the way Rhys kisses, though. “I think we'll have to do that again so I can be really sure.”

Rhys is laughing, still or again, soft and so close that his breath hits Joe's cheek. The hand on the nape of his neck curls into the soft hair there, and then Rhys is back to being in Joe's face. Their noses brush and their breaths mingle. Then, yeah, then they're doing it again. Rhys' mouth tastes like cigarettes, and his hair is soft and sleek when Joe moves his hand to stroke at it. This time, the kiss is longer, but it's just as careful as the first one, and that's perfect in an odd way, feels like Rhys is just as wound up with nerves about it as Joe is. They stop after a few seconds, when there's the sound of a heavy engine driving up the street, and Rhys says, “my bus is coming.”

“Oh. So, see you on Monday, then?”

“Yeah. Monday.” Rhys kisses Joe's cheek for a short second before he moves away. “See you, then.”


	2. Chapter 2

Then the bus is gone with Rhys on it, and Joe is half tempted to just wait for his own bus back home. The problem is, though, that the other half of him is the half who's really not keen on refusing the possibility of drinks and sex, and so he ends up calling Josh.

“Hi.”

“Hey. How was Rhys?”

“Good.” Joe coughs. “The date was good, I mean.”

On his end of the line, Josh goes “aww,” too dragged out and exaggerated to be anything but mocking. “You're growing up, Joseph.”

“Fuck off,” Joe says, but he's trying his hardest to stifle his laughter. Sometimes he really fucking hates Josh. “You still in a state to drive?”

“What do you take me for?”

“Well, come pick me up, then.”

So Josh does, after about ten minutes which Joe spends sitting on the bus stop bench and quietly cursing himself for saying that. He's almost entirely certain that he's too old to be feeling like this, or even to be doing this kind of thing. A bus stops and he thinks about getting in, even though he doesn't know where it's going. He doesn't do that, though, just waits until Josh's car pulls up to the curb with squealing tyres. There's an old mix CD playing on the stereo with the volume turned up entirely too loud when Joe gets in. He almost has to shout when he says, “hey again,” and he's not sure what Josh says in return, it all gets lost in the wall of noise.

They don't talk about Rhys on the drive back to Josh's flat, or anything at all, really, and then when they're sitting in his living room, they don't talk about Rhys, either. In fact, they don't talk much about anything, but there's cigarettes, and a quarter of a bottle of Baileys, and then there's kisses. This is different from kissing Rhys, well, obviously, what with it being Josh and all, but now Joe is drunk and Josh's lips are that much plumper and better to suck at. Also, Josh is violent and hectic and more than eager to tilt Joe's head back against the sofa and fuck his mouth open with his tongue, and to bite at his jaw and neck with those sharp teeth he has.

Really, Joe knew that this was going to happen, like an inevitability, almost, and if he's going to be honest. He lets Josh break him in, so to speak, rides him skin-slapping hard on the edge of the sofa and lets him dig his fingers into his skin, tug him down harder onto his cock. Joe gasps and whines and feels their flesh slap together so hard it nearly stings, and it's perfectly all right in his tipsy brain. This is a thing that's going to stop when he and Rhys get serious, if they do, it's not hurting anyone, in fact, quite the opposite. It's fuck-so-good, and really, it's almost some sort of good deed that they're doing this, just as great as being off his head drunk, but without the shitty hangover after, and also, it's probably better if Josh is going to go and shag him on the side instead of anyone else.

At one point, one of Josh's neighbours starts pounding on the wall, after he's flipped them both over to fuck Joe into the sticky leather upholstery, and it sounds like applause. The morning after, after he'd taken a cab home in the dead of night and slept until noon, Joe thinks that Josh might have been right, that he just really needed to get shagged a couple of times, because he feels better than he has in a long while, even when his arse is stinging and he's pretty sure he's ended up with sex bruises again, and, okay. Maybe it's not just the sex that's the reason why he's in such a good mood, and that's what he tells Rhys on Monday, too, well, the good mood part, not the sex part, when Rhys asks him how the rest of his weekend went.

“I don't know, I didn't do much. Got drunk with Josh, and I went out for food with Tom and my sister Sundays, I guess. Pretty good weekend.”

“Oh?”

They're sitting on the stairs outside the St Sebastian's side entrance yet again, even though it's gotten even colder than last week, but the air around them is heated up with fresh cigarette smoke and the scarf that Joe is wearing once again is keeping him warm. Also, there's the fact that Rhys is probably sitting closer to him than he really needs to be, not that Joe especially minds.

“Yeah.”

“And would you say your Friday evening's got anything to do with the reason why it was a good weekend?”

“Suppose so. I mean, I did have a date with this guy who had really good cheekbones.” Joe laughs, and when he reaches his free hand out a little bit, Rhys' hand is right there, so he takes it and links their fingers together. It seems normal, almost logical.

For a few seconds, Rhys doesn't reply. He laughs back, though, squeezes Joe's fingers between his, and then he says, “glad to hear that.”

The conversation turns to what Rhys did during his weekend, that he went to a record fair, which comes as absolutely no surprise to Joe, then to this story he'd heard from a friend of a friend when he went out to see a film on Sunday, something about France, which then in turn goes on to something else, and it feels the same way it usually does, and maybe that's really, really good. If anything, Rhys' hand fits perfectly into Joe's, so he doesn't let go.

After some time, while they're talking about Slaughterhouse-Five, which is a film Joe has only seen once, a long time ago when he wasn't particularly sober, the cold is beginning to be too much, it aches in his fingers and the tip of his nose, and he's pretty sure he should go soon if he wants to catch the next bus.

“Hey, Rhys?”

“Yeah?”

“I've got to leave pretty soon.”

“Oh.” Rhys' thumb rubs across the back of Joe's hand, like he doesn't want to let go, and then he says, “so, see you on Sunday, then?”

“Sunday.”

“My friend's got a gig Sunday night. I asked if you wanted to go with me, last Friday.”

“I know. I remember that.” Joe turns his head to smile at Rhys, and he kind of really hopes Rhys is smiling back. “That was supposed to be a yes.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Great. So, Sunday.”

There's a silence that spreads between them for a few seconds, and Joe has the feeling that maybe he should leave now before it gets too awkward, but then, he really doesn't want to go yet, because Rhys is warm and solid and _Rhys_ next to him.

“Hang on a second.”

“I wasn't going to go.”

“Oh,” Rhys says for the third time in the past two minutes, “well. I was just wondering, about Friday, do you want to do that again sometime?”

“Well, as far as I know, we've got a date on Sunday.”

“Yeah, but I mean. That's that, it's a date, I was thinking about if we were going to go anywhere serious.”

Joe laughs. “So you mean you want to go out with me,” he states, and immediately wants to punch himself in the face. This whole starting relationships thing has really been a while for him, has it.

“That's one way of putting it, yeah.”

“Why?” and wow, he completely deserves that punch in the face. “Not that I wouldn't want to, but there's plenty of guys out there who would probably want to go out with you and who actually have eyeballs.”

Also, plenty of guys who aren't currently fuck buddies with their ex boyfriends, and who don't have a shitty amount of feelings and insecurities, but Joe doesn't really want to say that.

“Yeah, well, there's probably lots of guys who'd want to go out with you who don't have shitty teeth or get mistaken for flat chested ladies twice a week.”

“I don't know.”

“I mean, I like you a lot.”

Joe shrugs. “Yeah,” and then, before he has to actually physically punch himself in the face, he says, “me too, I mean.”

“So that's a yes.” Rhys doesn't make it sound like a question.

“Yeah.”

“Great.”

Then he's kissing Joe again, soft and deep, and Joe is most likely about to miss his bus, but honestly, he doesn't exactly care. He wraps one arm around Rhys' shoulders, keeps him there and when he pulls back after a few seconds, Rhys is still so there, breathing the smell of coffee and cigarettes into his face and pushed against his side, and it's really weird in the greatest sense.

So he says it, “this is really weird.”

“What?”

“I mean, I met you at a support group. Not really the place where you'd pick up guys.”

“I don't know, my brother met his girlfriend at his post-traumatic stress group.”

“Yeah, but that's like, romantic comedy bullshit. Where both the leads are kind of crazy and sad and then they meet each other and it gets better or something cheesy like that.”

Rhys laughs and leans in a bit closer, close enough that their heads touch.

“But us. We met at a support group for blind people. What's that even supposed to mean?”

Rhys shrugs and says, “maybe love is blind, I guess.” Then he says, “oh my god.” Then, “I'm so sorry.”

Joe just laughs, and when he can finally stop laughing, he leans over and kisses Rhys again. It feels brilliant.

He still feels the same when he takes the bus home that night, feels bursting-heavy full with bright fluttering light, which is a weird metaphor, maybe, but it's how he feels. It's still the same way he feels during his appointment with Dr. Beaker, when he doesn't tell her about Rhys, not yet, and how he feels when he invites Josh over the next night and gets his dick sucked. How he feels Sunday night at the gig, when he's standing on the side of the crowd with Rhys dancing next to him and Josh somewhere in their general vicinity, because apparently, the guy whose band is playing is friends with both Rhys and Josh, and yeah, even when Joe swears he can feel Josh glaring daggers at the both of them, it's great-brilliant-wonderful and Rhys tastes like whiskey on the rocks and his face is so warm under Joe's fingers. When they meet again at Looking Forward the day after, it's still brilliant, in a sense, but it's the type that seems like something Joe could get used to, and he kind of does.

Nothing actually changes between them, really, they just sit around and talk nonsense as usual, except now there's holding hands and kisses and sometimes, Rhys just leans into Joe and doesn't say anything for a long while, and that's nice, in a way, to just feel him right there, even if it really freaked Joe out the first time it happened. They're going out on more dates, too, to drink coffee or get food, or to gigs, and occasionally, back to Rhys', after Looking Forward meetings or just because.

The very first time that happens, it's been maybe a month and a half since they first started going out. So it's almost Christmas, and the air is cold and damp with flurrying snowflakes most of the time and the pavement crunches and slips under Joe's shoes and everywhere smells like hazelnuts. The day that Rhys asks Joe to come back to his for some hours, to listen to some records, and for tea, maybe, since his mum always cooks too much, it's snowing down big fat flakes and it's bone-chattering finger-freezing cold, even when Joe has Rhys' fingers slotted between his. This is just after they've stepped out of the side entrance, after Joe has cringed at the cold wetness of snowflakes coming down on his hair and face and said, “fuck,” and after Rhys has suggested that maybe, instead of standing out in the cold or sitting in the crowded church basement that at this time of year smells more like damp woollen sweaters than anything else, they should just go back to his place.

“I'll even drive you home and all. If you want. Or that coffee shop across the street, we could go there too, it's warmer there. And the coffee's good.” Rhys pauses for a second or two, after he'd been rambling on at such an insane speed that Joe wasn't sure whether he was supposed to say anything or not, and his thumb strokes across the side of Joe's hand. “I guess I just don't want you to leave yet.”

Joe grins. “You're all sappy.”

“Sorry.”

“I like it, it's cute.” Before Rhys can say anything else, make that dumb comment that he probably thinks is clever, Joe adds, “yeah, back to yours sounds good.”

“Great. I'll just go get my brother, yeah?”

The ride back to Rhys' parents' house goes by quick. Joe crams himself into the car's small back seat and Rhys puts on an oldies station. He's smoking in the car, and he tells Joe that he can smoke, too, “it's my car, I don't really care,” but still, Joe doesn't, even when he's beginning to really crave one.

He finally gets that fag when he's in Rhys' room, after one of those endless introduction conversations, with Rhys' parents, and his sister, too. Rhys' mum insists that Joe should call her Rhiannon, and they all just keep on saying how many good things they'd heard about him because Rhys just won't shut up about everything, and it's terrifyingly awkward, but at the same time, Joe also kind of likes not having to hide. After tea, which consists mainly of plenty of questions, whether Joe is studying anything or if he has a job, and how he's coping with the whole life-changing accident thing, they sit on the bed in Rhys' upstairs room for a while, and Rhys puts on a bunch of records he'd been meaning to show to Joe and sits in his lap, all soft and warm and heavier than how he feels he should be. They smoke and kiss and Rhys asks what he thinks of this song, the guitar solo is incredible, isn't it, and by the time Joe asks what time it is, his parents are probably wondering, he really, really doesn't want to leave.

They end up sitting in Rhys' car for a good while even when it's already parked outside of Joe's parents' house, exchanging small kisses with their hands tangled together over the gear shift stick, and talking about nothing, until Joe remembers that, right, he's supposed to go home now.

“You reckon my parents are still up?”

“Well, there's a light on downstairs, so I guess they are.”

“Oh. Well.”

“Don't think I've seen anyone looking out the window, though, if that's what bothers you.”

“All right.” Joe reaches for the door, opens it, and steps outside carefully.

“You want me to walk you to the door?” Rhys' voice comes from still inside the car.

“If you like.”

When they get there, Rhys presses Joe into the nook in the wall around the door for a second, until the scratchy texture of it pushes against his back through the thin fabric of his shirt, and then kisses him, all deep and rough, just for a few split seconds. Joe sucks in his breath and tightens his grip on Rhys' wrist, and feels all dizzy and excited and almost terrified with it.

When he pulls back, Rhys' breath hits Joe in the face all hot as a cloud of fog in the cool night air, and he says, “we should go out for food Wednesday.”

“Yeah, why not.”

“I'll pick you up at six?”

“Great.”

Rhys leans forward to press a kiss to Joe's jaw, then his neck, and he's so ridiculously warm, all soft and close, and then he says, “miss you already.”

“You're a sap.”

“It's true.”

Joe laughs.

“See you Wednesday?”

“Yeah.”

Joe doesn't hear the engine of Rhys' car pick up, not even when he spends longer fumbling with the key and the lock on the door than he usually does. That makes Joe shudder even more, makes his skin grow tighter with knowing that Rhys is probably still watching. He makes straight for the basement stairs once he gets inside and takes his shoes off, but on the way there, he's interrupted by a voice.

“Joe?” It's his mum. “You're really late tonight.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“It's all right. Do you want something to eat? We've still got some left over from dinner.”

“No, thanks. Already ate.” Joe shrugs. He's starting to feel uncomfortable, his skin still tight, but in a different way.

He thinks he can hear his mum walking away, but then her voice comes from the kitchen. “Would you like tea?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Well, come into the kitchen and get it, then?”

Joe does, he sits down at the kitchen table and slumps forward with both his elbows braced on the tabletop. For a few minutes, it's silent, save for the Top 40 station playing muffled on the small radio that's perched on the top of the fridge. He's trying to relax, really is, but he still can't shake the feeling that, no matter what Rhys said, maybe his mum did see them, and then there's a mug of tea clanking down onto the table next to him. Joe gropes for it, raises it to his lips and sips even when it's still scorching-steaming hot, and then he does, relax, that is.

“I saw you with your girlfriend parked outside. Why didn't you say that you were seeing a girl?”

For a few split seconds, Joe's skin grows so fucking tight he almost stops breathing, he swears, and then it clicks. “I don't have a girlfriend.” Then his stupid mouth just keeps talking, “in the car, that was Rhys.”

It stays silent for another few seconds and Joe's skin feels even tighter, so tight that it might force everything out of him. He's got the urge to vomit, so he downs another few gulps of tea. That doesn't really help. Once more, he's got this urge to punch himself in the face.

Then his mum's voice comes, “oh.” And, “Why didn't you say anything about this Rhys?”

Joe is not sure whether he wants to breathe a sigh of relief or to sink down onto the tabletop and hide his head in the hope that if he does it for long enough, he'll actually disappear. He doesn't do either, though, just takes a deep breath. “Can you go get dad? Might as well tell you both at once.”

Then he does, he goes through that awkward discussion of the fact that he may or may not like boys just as much as he likes girls, and even though both his parents seem to take it pretty well, he's still got this desire to crawl out of his skin. After, when he feels like he's said everything, he goes down to his basement with another cup of tea and smokes two cigarettes, and when he's finished with that, he calls Josh.

“Hey.”

“Hey. How're you doing?”

Joe sighs. He already knows that he's about to ask something he'll regret later. It's been over three weeks since he last slept with Josh, so he's been bruise-free and not feeling guilty and stupid for a small while now, which is actually a really nice feeling. “Bit stressed out. You want to get drunk tomorrow night?”

Josh laughs, that obnoxious laugh he has, and it's a bit jarring. “You're saying you want to get laid tomorrow night.”

“That's another way of putting it, yeah.” There's a hot rush of blood rising to Joe's cheeks, makes him want to squirm at Josh's tone of voice.

“I'm honoured. Thought you were ignoring your favourite fuck buddy in favour of your girly boyfriend.” Josh is laughing again, and Joe is almost certain that he's not entirely sober. He's got this desire to hang up.

“Ha, no.” It sounds forced even to Joe's own ears. “So, are you free tomorrow night?”

“Yeah. Are you coming over at eight or should I pick you up?”

“Pick me up at your bus stop?” Joe asks, and that sounds so much like last year, like back when Josh wasn't an arse, it makes him wish he was the one who's drunk.

“Yeah, sure,” Josh says, and then the conversation drifts to less serious things, but then, anything is less serious to Joe than having to deal with the fact that he's sleeping with his fucking ex.

Joe ends up nearly falling asleep on the phone, not because he talks to Josh for a particularly long time, but he feels drained, drained by Rhys and Josh and his parents and everything. By the time he wakes up the next morning, he's forgotten about the night before, about the date he's got with Josh that evening. Unfortunately, that memory returns sometime between showering, coffee, and his first fag of the day, and as soon as it does, Joe groans and has to resist that same old urge to punch himself in the face. From somewhere near the kitchen counter, his mum asks if everything is okay, and he just shrugs and says, “yeah, yeah. I'm just tired, that's all.”

“You don't sound just tired. Do you want to talk to someone about this?”

Joe shakes his head, because he sure as hell does not want to discuss the fact that he's been fucking his ex boyfriend with anyone, not even a professional. Especially not Doctor Beaker. Maybe he's going to feel less guilty and stupid once he's ridiculously drunk, so he spends the day listening to random records before he takes the bus at half eight. Maybe he's a fucking idiot, yeah.

Josh is waiting at his stop, like he said he would. They hold hands on the way to his building, and Joe is trying his hardest to not freak out over that, even when he's pretty sure that his hand is sweaty, just focuses on walking and on his cane in his other hand, even though Josh is basically dragging him so he doesn't exactly need it. As soon as they've made it up the stairs to Josh's flat, after Josh has fumbled with the lock on his door for a too long amount of time, grumbling something about it being a piece of shit lock, he's pretty sure someone tried to pick it at some point, and after they've finally made it inside, they're kissing, hard and open-mouthed right there in the hall. Josh places both of his large hands on Joe's waist and pulls him in close, and Joe shivers like it's been too long since he's last been touched like that, and really, it has.

When they pull apart, Josh whispers into his ear, so close his lips brush the skin, “so, what do you want to do now? Drink or fuck?”

“How about both? One after the other?”

“All right, yeah.” Josh's lips move down to his neck, press a kiss to the big artery at the side where Joe can already feel the blood pumping faster than normal. “What do you want, Jack, Tequila, Jaeger? I've got pretty much everything.”

“Don't know,” Joe says, and he's almost starting to relax with Josh's hands on him and his mouth still so close that his breath hits Joe's neck all hot and wet. Still, he can't help but feel that he'd be far more relaxed if he was drunk, so he says, “something to get me pissed quick enough.”

“You're such a drunkard,” Josh says and laughs into his neck, and Joe tries his hardest to not shudder.

“Like you aren't, why do you have so much booze anyway?”

Josh is still laughing, and it's really, really unnerving in some way. “Got to be prepared for when you show up.” He kisses Joe's neck again, and then says, “you want to drink in the living room or my bedroom?”

“Bedroom's more efficient, I think.”

Another kiss, to his collarbone this time. Joe thinks that if they're really going to do both, they'd better get drunk really quickly because his breathing is already speeding up, his pulse beating faster. “Yeah. Don't want to have to carry you across the flat when you're too drunk to walk.”

Then Josh's hands are slipping down to his hips, leading him into the bedroom and pressing him into the mattress, and, yeah. Joe definitely should be drunker for this. “Hold on a second, I'll be right back.”

Joe does, he lies back onto the soft sheets and tries to get his breathing back in check, and then Josh returns with a creak of the bedsprings and a bottle that he presses into Joe's hand.

“What's this?”

“Tequila. That all right?”

“More than all right.” Joe unscrews the bottle and takes a large swig, and tries to relax even harder, which, maybe, is a little bit counterproductive. Then Josh is kissing him again, one hand on his hip, and using the other hand to pry the bottle from his hand.

They keep doing that, then, drinking and kissing, and at some point, Josh ends up on top of Joe, straddling him. He rocks his hips down a bit, and Joe tries to not be excited by that alone.

“Fucking hell, you're already hard.” Josh laughs.

“Yeah. Pretend it's not there, will you?”

“Like I can ignore that.” One of Josh's hands gropes its way down his chest, pauses to shove his shirt up and swirl its fingers around his belly button, and then it unzips his trousers and comes to rest on his cock. Not squeezing or stroking, just touching, and Joe is already having trouble with keeping his breathing even.

“Pass the bottle, will you?” Joe asks, voice growing already too heavy, and Josh shoves it back into his hand. He tips it toward his lips and takes a large gulp and fucking splutters, chokes and coughs a bit, and he's not sure whether he wants to blame being already drunk or being far too turned on for that.

From Josh comes that annoying fucking giggle yet again, stinging like the sound of nails on chalkboard, and when Joe has finally finished coughing, he says, “you should suck me off sometime. Work on your throat control.” He leans down and licks at Joe's lips, laps up all the little splatters of Tequila still sprinkled around them, and then asks, “you still got your tongue pierced?”

“Yeah,” Joe says back, tries to make it not obvious how much Josh's weight pressing down against him is riling him up, and then he brings the bottle still in his one hand back to his lips. This time, he manages to swallow it down without choking, and then he says, “my sister keeps saying I should take it out though.”

“You're thinking about your sister while I've got my hand on your cock.”

Joe laughs. “Yeah, I don't know. She reckons it makes me look like a huge gay slag.” He takes yet another swig of Tequila and his brain gets even fuzzier.

“But that's what you are.” Josh's hand works at the buttons of his shirt, lets its fingers slip inside and scratch softly at the skin of Joe's stomach and chest, and Josh licks a long stripe from his collarbone up to his jawline. “You're a massive slag, wouldn't be under me right now if you weren't.”

Joe's insides curl at that, just a little. He gropes for the bedside table for a few seconds, and once he's found it, sets the bottle down, and then he fumbles with Josh's shirt until he can unbutton it and pull it off. Maybe that's a bit hypocritical, but then, he'd rather fuck than talk right now. “Shut up, just shut up,” he says and pulls Josh down by the back of his neck. The other hand goes down to Josh's arse, holds him tight while Joe rocks his up against him, and, yeah, much better.

Josh kisses him and fumbles with the waistband of his trousers, tries to force them further down Joe's hips, and whispers, “slag,” with the A drawn out long, mocking.

Then he can't say anything else any more because Joe has one hand in his hair, shoving their mouths together. His hands are still working, though, pushing at Joe's shirt and forcing it off, and then they're both equally half naked. It doesn't take much longer until they've both lost their trousers, too, and by that point, Joe is embarrassingly eager, his cock already leaking against his stomach. He can hear Josh squirting lube onto his hand, somewhere between the sound of heavy breathing and his own booming heartbeat, and the sensation of skin sliding against naked skin, and then all that fades out when Josh slips his first finger inside him. He stretches Joe out slowly, keeps kissing at his neck and jaw while he rubs his fingertips against that one fuck-so-good spot.

“How do you want it? Come on, tell me.”

Then Josh's fingers are gone and his mouth is too for a few seconds, and Joe can hear the sound of a tin foil condom wrapper being ripped open. He's too aroused to care, and too drunk to think, really, but there's one distinct thought in the back of his head. “Don't care,” Joe says, with his breathing still too heavy, “just don't leave any marks where people can see, yeah?”

“Aw, you're not usually fussy,” Josh says, mocking, and like that, he pushes into Joe in one deep thrust.

Honestly, it takes Joe an embarrassingly long time to get his breathing back halfway in check, what's with the sudden feeling of being full and the way Josh is just barely nudging his cock against that one spot when he pulls back. He makes a noise that sounds a little too much like a squeak, a girlish little squeal at the sudden jolt of it, and can't do much other than bring his legs up to Josh's hips and dig his fingers into his thick hair. A little, he pulls at the strands of it, even though he knows how much Josh hates it as well as just because he knows that. “Yeah, well,” Joe starts, and then he squeaks a bit again because apparently Josh has decided that this is the right moment to fuck into him faster. “I've got a date tomorrow.”

Josh makes a snorting sound into his neck and licks at his collarbone again. “And yet you're here.” He pauses and licks up Joe's neck to his jaw and then at his ear, which, really, makes Joe want to jump and shudder more than anything else. “On my cock.” Then he fucking bites, at the junction between Joe's jaw and neck, and at least it's not quite painful enough to feel like it will leave a bruise. “You little slag.”

One of his hands comes to stroke Joe's cock, makes him squirm and gasp for a few split seconds, and then Joe pulls Josh closer by that stupid mop of hair he has and whispers, “thought I told you to shut up.” Then Josh finally does, with his puffy-swollen lips pushing against Joe's all wet with saliva and his tongue forcing its way inside.

After that, it's a fast fuck. Josh slots his hands into the sweaty hollows of Joe's knees and brings his legs up onto his shoulders and then fucks him like that, pushes his thighs into his chest and forces all the air from his lungs. His mouth never moves away from Joe's lips, though, and his nails don't scratch or pinch like they usually do, but still, Joe writhes and sighs and actually tries to _not_ pull Josh's hair. When the orgasm hits him, he feels boneless and soft, the sensation of it running through his whole body, and so he groans and twitches around Josh's cock and drags his nails down the sweaty skin of his back.

When it's over, Joe really, really doesn't want to get up yet, so he doesn't. Josh pulls one arm around his waist and presses his blood rush-hot face into Joe's hair, and that hand's fingers trace soft patterns of circles and swirls over his ribcage. Joe feels fucked-out, like he won't be able to get hard again for the next few days, or walk, for that matter, and when one finger brushes his nipple, Joe squirms and bats at it. “Don't. Painful.”

“So what's the thing that got you that stressed out in the first place, then? Your boyfriend still won't let you put it in him?” Josh's voice drawls, raspy and sleepy, but sounding unusually sober.

“Leave my boyfriend out of this.” Joe turns so his face is away from Josh, and Josh just moves closer and presses himself against his back. “Why d'you think you've got any idea who would be putting it into whom, anyway?”

“Like he's even got anything to put in your arse. He probably has a fanny.” Josh's arm tightens its grip around his waist and Joe tries to squirm away, but rather unsuccessfully.

“Leave my boyfriend out of this,” Joe says once again and almost wants to cringe at how repetitive he's being. He turns again so he's back to facing the ceiling, and Josh laughs into the side of his face.

He's not really in the mood to tell Josh why he needed that shag so badly, or at least not yet, so he just turns once again and buries his face in the pillow. Josh just keeps on clinging to him, though, like a barnacle or a small animal with claws or some other sort of... clingy thing. Joe is bad at metaphors, okay. And maybe he wants to get up and leave now. “I don't wanna talk about it.” Then he does, sit up after somehow disentangling himself from Josh, that is, and he says, “I should probably go home.”

Joe starts searching the floor for where he's hastily scattered his clothes earlier, and Josh goes, “no, wait, let me help you... here, this is yours, and this,” but not before he's made some snide remark of, “what are you, my girlfriend?” which Joe tries his hardest to ignore. He calls himself a taxi after he's finally struggled back into his clothes, and when he gets back to his house and lets himself sink down into his mattress, he's still a little bit drunk and trying his hardest to not feel guilty and stupid yet again.

The next day, when he's out for dinner with Rhys, he decides to tell Rhys about it, about the main reason why he felt the need to shag Josh again. They're at this small Asian place where the sauce is too spicy and the spring rolls are too crispy, but Rhys is sitting across from him and keeping their hands linked while they eat and talk, so he's not going to complain. Rhys has spent the past few minutes talking about his family, that they can't wait to see Joe again, he should come around more often, “and my sister thinks you're cute, too, I guess.” He laughs.

“Really courteous of your sister,” Joe says and smiles over at him, and hopes that he doesn't have anything caught in his teeth.

“So does that mean I've got to be worried that you'll let her steal you?”

“Not at all, no.” He squeezes Rhys' hand for a short second, and then adds, “I mean, she seems nice, but I like you more.”

“Glad to hear that.” A short pause, and then Rhys says, “they really are crazy about you, though, I think if we keep going out they'll start asking about the wedding in a few months.”

“We're only getting married if you wear a dress.”

“Naturally. I think it's because you're the first guy I've been seeing since.” He pauses for a second and Joe can feel the tension in his fingers, in his skinny wrist, and then he says, “the first boyfriend I've had who was a really good guy, I mean. The reason my family likes you so much.”

“Is that a compliment?” Joe asks and pokes another piece of spring roll onto one chopstick. He's never been good at eating with chopsticks, and now he just can't be bothered any more now. Rhys had already made fun of him over that earlier that day, but he'd just pointed at his sunglasses and said, as deadpan as he could, “think I'm allowed to be bad at it, considering I've not got any eyeballs,” so that was that.

“Guess it is.” Rhys laughs.

There's a small silence and the bite of spring roll in Joe's mouth feels all too dry, so he pulls it out and swipes it sidelong through the sweet and sour sauce on his plate. He listens to the sound of his own chewing for a few seconds and then he says, mouth still half full, “my parents know about us, by the way.”

“Oh,” Rhys goes, muffled by what must be the same amount of food in his mouth, and Joe laughs at that. “What did they say?”

“Well, they didn't kick me out or anything, so I guess it went pretty well.”

“They're gonna warm up to me. They always do.”

“I don't know, we had the whole talk.”

“Yeah, figured as much. They're gonna warm up to that, too, I know that.”

Joe smiles. “I hope so.”

“Wait, that means they saw us, right?”

“Yeah, that's how they found out.”

“Shit, I'm sorry.”

“I don't know, I brought this whole thing onto myself. I mean, my mum thought you were a woman.”

Rhys explodes a bit right then, into loud, braying sniggers which he can't really muffle, and Joe finds it kind of endearing. After he's finally gotten himself together, Rhys says, still chuckling between the words, “sorry about that. I don't know why that was so funny to me.” He makes a small amused noise, and Joe grins back at him. “Your mum really thought I was a lady?”

“Yeah, and she asked me why I'd never mentioned you before.”

“I hope she's not expecting me to bear your grandchildren or anything.”

“I hope not.” Joe squeezes Rhys' fingers that are still entwined with his own a bit. “I mean, if she really wants grandchildren there's always my sister. They're going to be half Tom, but...”

“Tom's all right,” Rhys says, “I like him, I guess.”

“Yeah, I like him too, but he's a massive twat.”

Then Rhys is laughing again, and they're kissing over the small table, just for a second or two. Rhys tastes like sweet-and-sour and cigarettes, and it's perfect.

When Joe tells Doctor Beaker that story the next day, it doesn't go quite that easily. She starts off with her usual question, how his week was, and Joe says, “well. I came out to my parents as bisexual.”

“Oh,” Doctor Beaker says, and the pen scrawls for a short few seconds. “Was there anything that prompted this, or...?”

“Well, my mum saw me and Rhys kissing in his car, so she kind of found out that way.” Joe decides not to mention the whole 'mistaking Rhys for a flat-chested lady' part. “I figured I might as well tell her about it.”

“You've been seeing Rhys.”

“Yeah. We've been going out for a month and a half now.” Joe swallows, because judged by the tone of her voice, Doctor Beaker is about to do that thing where she delves deep into his subconscious and starts making assumptions which are usually at least partially true.

“And you didn't tell me about this because?” Yeah, he was right, she's doing that psychotherapist thing again.

“I'm not sure. I guess I didn't find it important.”

“You're saying Rhys isn't important to you?”

“That's not what I meant. Of course he's important to me, I like him a lot.” Joe folds his hands over his stomach and can feel his chest moving with deep breaths underneath. It's a bit calming. “I just didn't think our relationship would end up being important, that's all.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That I figured he'd probably realise how annoying as a person I really am very soon and then break up with me. I didn't bring it up in case he left me the next week.”

Joe knows that Doctor Beaker is most likely scrawling down things about his low self-esteem and his insecurities onto her notepad right now. He wants to cringe, because it's not like he's got a particularly bad view of himself or anything, he's just honest with himself. Really, he wouldn't blame Rhys for not wanting to be with a guy who has no eyes and severe mental trauma, as Doctor Beaker calls it, and who's sleeping with his ex.

“Do you think there could be a point in time when you would have told me willingly about Rhys if this situation hadn't occurred?”

It's a somewhat awkward question, so Joe shrugs. “If we'd hit the half a year, I guess. Or the whole year, if I'd still be coming here then.”

“You're saying that you only consider long-term relationships important and worthwhile, then. Why?”

“Lots of people think that, I'm pretty sure.”

“You didn't answer my question. Why do you think that?” Doctor Beaker's pen scrawls under her voice. “The reasoning behind a thought like that is very important.”

“Well, I figure if he spends over six months tolerating my bullshit, he's a keeper.” Joe pauses and adds, “I mean, I'm honestly still not sure if I'm supposed to be like that. If I'm just supposed to go out drinking on weekends and get with blokes and do other normal things when I'm supposed to be traumatised.”

There's a long pause, and Joe wonders whether his wording was off, whether he was thinking of Josh when he said 'blokes', but then, Doctor Beaker probably didn't notice, hopefully. From a few feet away, she makes a small noise in her throat.

“How long did you say did your relationship with Joshua last, again?”

“Almost three years.” Joe swallows and isn't too sure why.

“And the entire time, you've never told your family about it?”

“Well,” Joe says, in an attempt to make it look like he's about to say something other than “no,” because he's pretty sure Doctor Beaker would find something unhealthy in that, but then he says it either way, “no.” Then he adds, just to be fair, “well, my sister knew, because we used to sneak into clubs together before I turned eighteen, so she had to find out sometime.”

Doctor Beaker coughs. “And why didn't you ever tell your parents?”

“I guess it was some sort of solidarity thing,” Joe starts. He folds his hands and leans back into the suede of the armchair like that could ease the way his throat is clogging up with how much he hates breaching this subject. The heater in the office is all the way turned up, and even though outside is freezing cold, it suddenly seems far too hot. “Because Josh knew his parents would have a problem with it, he was scared that they'd kick him out or something. So we both just agreed to kind of keep it secret.” He exhales and it feels too heavy.

The pen scrawls for a few seconds. “And that never bothered you, all that time?”

“I guess it got kind of hard after a while. Always having to pretend.” Joe scratches at the sides of his chair and hopes that it will make his skin feel slightly less tight. It doesn't work.

“Were you scared of how your parents would react?”

“I'm not sure, I never really thought about it. A bit nervous, I guess, that they could end up reacting the same way Josh's would have reacted.”

“But how did it actually go when you told them?”

“Not that bad. Well, they didn't kick me out or anything, so I guess that means I'm okay for now.”

A pause, and the pen scrawls again for a few seconds. “Well, Joseph,” Doctor Beaker starts, and Joe knows that tone of voice all too well. He suppresses the cringe pretty well, he supposes. “I don't mean to sound unprofessional when I say this, but do you ever consider yourself a pushover?”

Joe shrugs, but really, yeah, he does. “Suppose so, kind of.” He adds, “can we talk about something else, please?”

“All right, I don't want to pressure you. But don't think I won't be coming back to what we've addressed today,” Doctor Beaker says, “I want to address some of the finer points of your relationship with Rhys at some point.”

“Yeah, okay.” Joe feels defeated, almost, in an odd way.

“So, how has your week been otherwise?”

When Joe takes the bus home that night, he feels like more than a pushover than ever, and also, an unusual amount of guilty and stupid. He sinks down further in his seat by the window, and presses his forehead against the cool glass, and tries to not think about Josh again. This is what he hates about this whole therapy thing, the fact that he gets to have all those feelings he wishes he didn't have thrown right into his face every time, and also probably one of the reasons why he needs it in the first place.

In his defence, when Josh calls him the next day and asks if he wants to get rip roaring drunk, Joe is not that much of a pushover to say yes, and so, instead, he spends his Friday night getting rip roaring drunk at some party with Rhys.

They end up sitting on a freezing cold porch with half a bottle of Captain Morgan and a blanket wrapped around them and roughly ten other people, and they kiss and everyone tells stories. Rhys keeps introducing Joe as his boyfriend to people, and that, that's weird, but it's also kind of great, and that's how Joe feels, too, great, even when his arse is getting cold and he's so tired he could just fall asleep with his head on Rhys' shoulder. It's still great the morning after, when he wakes up somewhere that feels like a couch with someone that feels like Rhys pressed up against him, with a buzzing head and presumably-Rhys' hair in his mouth, and when presumably-Rhys who turns out to be the actual Rhys takes him out for breakfast and coffee before driving him home.

It's the type of great that feels too big and bursting inside of Joe's chest, like he shouldn't be able to feel it. That's in a completely non-self deprecating way, okay, it's a big feeling of greatness that spreads out inside Joe's ribcage until he feels like he can't breathe properly, like it's physically impossible to fit that feeling into him. It sticks inside of him and stretches him out for the rest of the weekend, sticks with him when Josh calls at some point on Saturday evening and moans about the fact that he didn't get sex last night, because his girlfriend is out of town or something, and Sunday when they're sitting inside a McDonald's with Tom and Izzy, because all of them are too broke to afford proper food. The way it feels, it's completely obnoxious, even when Tom asks Joe about how things are going with that boyfriend he apparently has, in a tone that's entirely not mocking, compared to Josh's tone, at least, although that isn't saying much. Even when he gets to talk about Rhys, talk about how well it's going and all that, it still doesn't make the amount of feelings stretching out his guts any less apparent.

At least it's managed to somewhat subside by the time that it's Monday evening and time for another meeting of Looking Forward, or maybe that's the crappy coffee and the overall gross smell of middle-aged people in knitted jumpers sweating in the overheated church basement that doesn't allow Joe to have any feelings other than disgust. It's almost Christmas, Dan-or-Damien reminds them at the beginning of the hour, so everyone should, in addition to their regular sob story, tell the group about something they want for the next year, something that can't be wrapped up in paper.

Honestly, Joe could have done with just the regular discussion, something less childish, and also, less depressing. The woman with one eye who has chemical burns all over her face, spends a good ten minutes sobbing over the fact that she needs to find a job, that she's tired of not getting hired because of what she looks like and of having to feed her kids off welfare, and there's a new girl this week who's about Joe's age and who tells the story of her accident, it was a dog, for her, and that they tried some sort of experimental surgery to save the eye but that it didn't work. She talks about how the one thing she wants for the next year is to stop being sad all the time and to be able to get out of bed every day, and to see if she can go back to uni, and by the time she finishes, she's crying too.

Joe almost feels like an arsehole when it's his turn to speak, but still, he goes through the usual procedure of “Joe – car accident – blind in both eyes – trying to deal with it,” and then says, “I don't know, I've been pretty happy the past few months. I guess I just want it to stay that way.” From a few feet away comes a sniffle, and that really does make Joe feel like an arsehole, and then, Dan-or-Damien starts drawling on again in his boring voice.

On the other hand, though, Joe thinks his arsehole-ish amount of happiness is completely justified when he's got Rhys sitting next to him after the hour is over. Rhys chatting on about something or other, as always, something that happened on Sunday, that he's probably going to have family from Wales over starting tomorrow and absolutely doesn't want to have to deal with that, all while his voice is muffled by food in his mouth. They've replaced the scones with gingerbread this week, apparently, and Joe supposes that that's nice, to have something festive that isn't also unintentionally depressing. Also, it helps that the gingerbread is just as good as the regular scones.

Rhys says, “they're all planning to stay until New Year's. That's more than a week, I can't spend a whole week around people who don't like me.”

“Your family doesn't like you,” Joe repeats, mainly to say anything at all, and also, to put a halt to Rhys' flowing rambles.

“Only my mum's side, because I'm almost 23 and I've been living with my parents for. Because I still haven't moved out and that's irresponsible, I suppose.”

“Oh.” Joe feels around on the floor for where he's put his cup of shitty coffee, and he takes a sip and says, “that's pretty sad.”

“What, that my family thinks I'm an irresponsible slacker or that I still live at home?”

“Bit of both, I guess.” Joe laughs.

“Wow, thanks.” Rhys shifts a little in his seat, Joe can feel it with how closely their hips are pressed together, and then his hand lands on Joe's thigh. “My point is, I'm not going to sit at mine for the entire holiday season and listen to people tell me that I need to get a job that actually pays and find myself an apartment because I'm old enough to live by myself. Christmas, yeah, but after that, you think you can keep me busy until they're gone?”

“Shouldn't be a problem.” Joe turns his head and grins over at Rhys, because it really shouldn't, he knows that exact same tone of voice from Josh all too well, and that means keeping Rhys busy most likely equals drinking and subsequent sloppy sex. Maybe that's finally going to be the point when he stops shagging Josh, the point when they're getting serious, to put it in Josh's terms, or, to also put it in Josh's terms, the point when Rhys finally lets him put it in, and considering that Rhys is right next to him, warm and smelling of cigarettes and some expensive cologne, Joe is thinking way too much about Josh, so he should probably stop doing that.

“Excellent,” Rhys says, all soft and happy, the way he always is, which also matches the way Joe feels whenever he's around Rhys.

He kisses Joe's cheek, just for a short second, and Joe almost wants to cringe, not in front of all these people old enough to be his parents, please, but then, he figures that they're probably too wrapped up in their own conversations to see.

Blind people joke not intended, fuck, and also, when Rhys squeezes his knee and says, “fuck, I'm dying for a fag,” that's probably the point when Joe banishes every thought of Josh from his brain.

He's craving it, too, even when the weather outside has gotten even nastier over the past week, snow-mud that squelches under his shoes covering the pavements, the air so icy-burning cold that every breath hurts inside his brain. “Yeah.”

“Not in this weather, though. You want to come back to mine and smoke in my room until it's so foggy we can't see anything?” Rhys reaches for Joe's hand and starts to pull him up, and then says, “I mean, until I can't see anything.” Then he says, “oh my god, I'm sorry for that.”

Joe just laughs and squeezes Rhys' fingers tighter between his.

This time, on the car ride back to Rhys', Joe spends the whole fifteen-odd minutes smoking in the passenger seat with the window open, even when Rhys keeps insisting that it doesn't matter, he doesn't mind the smell, and it's cold outside. Cold is exactly what Joe needs right now, though, what's with the heat and sweat below his collar, and maybe he'd mind having such an amount of teenage feelings for Rhys less if they didn't go along with that bodily reaction, or at least, not in the middle of a stuffy church basement. There's a mix of 60s girl groups playing on the radio, and Rhys talks to his brother for most of the drive, about some family affair that Joe doesn't really understand, and he doesn't mind. It feels more than comfortable, either way.

When they get there, the house smells like food and the pine of a Christmas tree, and Joe spends over twenty minutes sitting in the kitchen, picking at a plate of noodles while both Rhys' mum and his sister bombard him with questions about his own life, and, really, he doesn't mind that all too much, either. Rhys sits next to him groaning in mock exasperation every few minutes, though, and eventually, he just takes Joe by the hand and practically drags him upstairs after saying, “honestly, Harry, he's my boyfriend, not yours. Why don't you find one of your own?”

Then they're both sitting on the carpet in Rhys' room, and Rhys puts on some fuzzy psychedelic record and opens the window. There's a cool breeze coming in, but it's not all that bothersome. Joe pulls his shades off. That's a thing that's kind of become a habit whenever they're alone, because Rhys doesn't mind the glass marbles, or at least, the only thing he's ever said about them was that they're a pretty colour. What a Rhys thing to say. Also, kissing with sunglasses on is more than difficult.

“Sorry about that,” Rhys says, “they're really annoying about that. All the guys I've ever gone out with, but you're the worst, so far.”

“They're not that bad, really.” Joe leans back against a thing that feels like it might be a closet door and pulls his packet of fags from his shirt pocket, but finds it to be surprisingly empty. “Better than the alternative.”

“Oh.” It sounds kind of pitiful, like Rhys has something else to say than just “oh”, but maybe Joe's imagining that.

“Yeah, my last boyfriend's parents hated me. Didn't even know we were going out or anything, they just really didn't like me.” He's not thinking of Josh.

“Bad luck I suppose.” Rhys' voice comes from much closer by, and then he's dropping his weight down onto the floor next to Joe and draping his legs over Joe's thighs.

“Yeah.” Joe isn't sure what to do with his hands, not when he's got Rhys all over him, so he puts one on Rhys' knee. “Thought you said you wanted to have a smoke.”

“Well, we can still do that.” Rhys laughs, and then comes the flick of a lighter, and he blows a thread of smoke into Joe's face.

“Fair enough. Think you can bum me one? You owe me like ten.”

“Yeah, here.” He places the filter end of one fag between Joe's lips and lights it, and then he says, “so, got any plans for the holidays that are less terrible than mine?”

Joe exhales. “Not really, no. Going to spend the whole three days eating and listening to my nan complain about the way I dress and how my hair looks, most likely.”

“Not as bad as having to deal with ten people who tell you to get a job in a welsh accent,” Rhys counters.

“You've never met my nan, obviously. She's frightening.” Joe laughs a little at his own comment.

“We've got to do a getaway or something.” Another cloud of smoke hits Joe in the face, and Rhys continues, “next year, I mean, the two of us or maybe some friends. Just hide somewhere for all of the holidays and do nothing.”

“Sounds great.”

“I did it with my ex last year. We rented out this hotel room and lived off takeaway food and room service for almost a week, I really want to do that again.”

“Well,” Joe says, “we don't have to wait for Christmas again to do that.” His hand that isn't holding the fag feels around the floor for Rhys' one that's between their bodies and takes it. It's a bit clammy, but Joe feels like, well, what teenage feelings feel like. The good kind, that is.

“Sounds like a plan.” There's a small pause, and then Rhys starts laughing. It's one of those tiny, spluttering laughs, like he's trying to hold it back, but not really succeeding with that.

“What's so funny?”

“Nothing. Just, I kind of wish you had eyes right now. Need someone to appreciate my smoke ring skills.”

“You look like you've got a dick in your mouth when you're blowing smoke rings,” Joe points out. Yeah, he should probably try his hardest to not be offended by Rhys' comment, but he doesn't really have to try. This whole thing is too good for that.

“Hey, it's a really seductive look,” Rhys says, still laughing under his breath, and then Joe laughs, too.

“Yeah, I bet.” He can feel Rhys all too close to him, all warm and there, suddenly, and after a few seconds, he says, “I really want to kiss you right now.”

“What, do you need my permission or anything?”

“No,” and Joe laughs again, “figured I should tell you, though. Wouldn't want to burn my mouth off in case you've got your fag there.”

“You're ridiculous,” Rhys says, but he somehow manages to shuffle even closer, and then he adds, “best kind of ridiculous. Come kiss me, then?”

And Joe does, he leans a bit forward until he finds Rhys' lips, knocks their foreheads together in the process, and then kisses him, soft at first. Rhys tastes like sharp-bitter cigarettes and traces of gingerbread and mouth, mostly cigarettes, and Joe figures he probably tastes the same, so he doesn't complain. He brings the hand that isn't still holding his fag to Rhys' face, to his hollow cheek and the sharp line of his jaw, pulls him in deeper. It's different from any other kiss they'd had yet, and Joe almost thinks of Josh again for some reason. Of him and Rhys getting, in Josh terms, serious, too, but then Rhys makes a soft sighing sound in his throat and Joe pushes that thought away. He lets Rhys pull away and kiss down along his jawline, onto his neck where he, thank the fucking lord, doesn't have any sensitive bruised spots because Josh was kind enough to not leave any bite marks last week.

“Wait a second.” Rhys suddenly pulls away, but then he's back and all the way in Joe's lap, heavy and warm, and he's pulling the still-smouldering fag from Joe's hand. “Ashtray.”

“Fuck, I forgot that was even there.”

Rhys laughs at him, rings his arms around Joe's neck, and they're back to kissing, too unfocussed and slobbery to really be sexy, but it's intense, makes soft shivers run up Joe's back, and suddenly, Joe feels like he's back to being sixteen. He slides his fingers up from where they were kind of awkwardly resting on Rhys' waist to his hair and pushes them into the sleek strands to pull his head closer, and also, because that little motion pulls the most wonderful kind of noises from Rhys' mouth.

Then that mouth is gone, though, back to being at Joe's throat, and this time, Rhys actually bites, right at a sensitive spot, too, and, “ow, shit shit shit, that _hurt_.”

“Sorry,” Rhys says, his voice vibrating into the skin of Joe's throat, and he licks at the mark he'd just left and sends another shiver rolling along Joe's spine. His whole weight is pressing against Joe, pushing him backwards with his hands on his shoulders, his hips scooting forward, like he's trying to push them both down onto the carpet.

The problem with that, though, is that Joe just ends up with his back digging into the closet door, all squashed and uncomfortable, so he's got to wrap his arms around Rhys' waist and kind of manoeuvre them around a little awkwardly, until they're both lying on the carpet.

“Better?”

“Yeah, yeah, better.” Joe grins and pulls Rhys down for another kiss, feels like he's gotten even heavier and warmer where he's sitting across Joe's hips, and it makes his head spin more than it should. Really, this time less than a week ago he was getting his brains fucked out, so why is he now blushing and already half-hard even though Rhys hasn't really done that much to him, and why is he thinking of Josh again, for that matter?

Joe pushes that thought away when he feels Rhys' mouth on his neck again, leaving more tiny bites, more careful this time, and, yeah, good. This is good, and he should probably do something with his hands other than just leave them on Rhys' shoulders, so he reaches down and digs his fingers into Rhys' hips, lets them slip below the shirt that he's wearing. Rhys is this weird combination of skinny and soft, he's got sharp hipbones perfect to hold on to, and, okay, maybe scratch a little because Rhys is doing things to Joe's neck with his mouth that shouldn't turn him on as much as they do.

One of Rhys' hands comes down to tug Joe's shirt from his trousers, runs across his hips and slips its fingers into his waistband. It's cold, far too cold, or maybe Joe is just too warm, but there's something about the feel of it when Rhys pushes his whole hand into Joe's trousers and palms him through the fabric of his pants. Something that, yeah, Joe is pretty sure he's more than just half hard right now. He brings one hand to the back of Rhys' head and kisses him again, and, okay, maybe he makes a little noise at that too, but Rhys just laughs, all soft and quiet. Somehow, that's exciting, and then Rhys rubs himself against Joe's hip and he's got to be at least half hard as well, why wouldn't he be, but still. Exciting, yeah, even though Joe can't help but feel how hard the floor is beneath his head, and also, the carpet is rubbing against that strip of skin between his shirt and trousers, and he really, really doesn't want to have to deal with carpet burns in odd places ever again.

“Rhys? Bed?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

They pull each other up from the floor, and Rhys basically flattens Joe to the bed, starts kissing him again before they even hit the mattress, and the bed makes a surprisingly loud thud against the wall.

“Fuck,” Joe whispers and laughs, and then he stops laughing, because Rhys is slowly sliding his trousers and pants down his hips.

“Fuck what?”

“You sure you want to do this with your whole family in the house?” Joe asks, and maybe he should really get punched in the face, way to ruin the mood. But then, this is weird, to think that there's people downstairs who actually want him to go out with their son, and that that son currently has one hand wrapped around Joe's cock, and, wow, he's good with that hand.

“We're two stories up. They're not going to hear,” Rhys says, his voice lower and, well, filthier, than Joe thought he could possibly sound. He laughs and presses another kiss to Joe's lips, and then says, “unless you're a screamer or something.”

“Not that I know of.”

“Not a problem, then.” Rhys kisses Joe's cheeks, his lips, his chin and his jaw, down to his neck and what he can reach below the collar of Joe's shirt. That's around the point where Joe just kind of decides to stop thinking about anything and instead tips his head back and focuses on all the places where they're touching each other, Rhys' mouth and his hips and his fingers, except then, his weight is gone. “So. When was the last time you'd had a blow job?”

Joe tries to not think of Josh, of last month when they'd sat in his room with Bowie on the record player and Josh randomly decided to suck him off, but he doesn't really succeed. “Must have been a while.”

“Good.” Rhys laughs and runs a slick palm along the head of Joe's cock. “Would have been a bit disappointed if you'd said something else.” Then his lips fold over the tip of it and Joe makes a noise that's embarrassing to say the least, and he _really_ hopes that no one downstairs can hear them.

As it turns out, Rhys is excellent at blow jobs. Yeah, he doesn't have the full fuckable lips or the ability to deep throat or anything, not like Josh, who's some kind of dick sucking savant because he'd spent too much time watching online porn or something, but still. Joe can't do too much other than resist the urge to buck his hips or to tug Rhys down further by his hair, and then he does this thing with his tongue and Joe completely gives up on anything and just lets himself get his cock sucked.

Rhys holds one of his hands and keeps pulling off to whisper little things, “fuck, you're hot like this,” “don't hold back. I can take it,” and that kind of makes Joe feel like he's suddenly been transported into a cheap amateur porno, but then, it's also kind of nice, to hear Rhys' voice and the little noises that slip from his throat, that confirmation that it's really Rhys of all people who's doing this. “You're so close, come on. Come.”

It's only a few more seconds until Joe does, right into the wet heat of Rhys' mouth – he swallows, he swears to fucking god – and then he feels, well. He's just had his dick sucked, how is he supposed to feel, other than the given bloody fantastic?

There's a certain brilliance in it, though, the same bright-white euphoric feeling that he gets when he's kissing Rhys, or holding his hand. Or talking to him. Well, shit, he's having teenage feelings over a blow job.

“And?” Rhys' voice is a bit scratchy, and he tugs Joe's pants into place and does his trousers back up.

Joe can't think of anything to say that doesn't sound overly sappy or like it came out of mediocre porn. “Shit.”

“What?”

“I'm in love with your mouth.” May as well go in for both options.

Rhys laughs, all hoarse and sexy, and then he climbs back onto the bed and on top of Joe. “I'm honoured.” He leans down, until their foreheads and noses touch. Under Joe's hands, his back is warm even through the layer of shirt.

It's a bit of a moment, but then Joe remembers the last time he had a moment like that with Josh, and the time before that, and before that, and yeah. That may have been a bit of a mood killer. “I swear to god, if you're about to do that thing where you keep my jizz in your mouth and then make me taste it, you're no longer my boyfriend.”

Rhys makes this unattractive snort-laugh noise. “Would never do that.” He leans down all the way and presses their lips together, and Joe can taste the bitter-salty taste of himself in his mouth.

“You still taste like cock.”

“Yeah, wonder why. Merry Christmas eve eve.” Rhys scoots down a bit further and fits himself against Joe's side. Joe kind of craves a fag, but, well, he's still out of them, and he's pretty sure asking Rhys to bum one would be violating some sort of post-sex etiquette. “Hope you liked your present.”

“Christmas eve eve present,” Joe repeats. “That's a thing for you, then?”

“Well, that was actually supposed to be your Christmas present. But since you were already here.”

“You got me nothing but a blow job for Christmas,” Joe says, mock offended.

“Was going to give you this record I found at the fair last weekend. But I figured a blow job would make a better present.”

Joe just nods and searches for Rhys' mouth with his own. He's starting to settle down into that half-asleep boneless post-sex state, and maybe he should go home soon. Maybe he should return the favour first, but then, it's been what, a year since he last sucked someone off, and he doesn't really want to choke on Rhys' dick or anything. So instead, he kisses Rhys again and starts to unbuckle his belt with one hand. “Hey, you're still hard.”

The only response that comes from Rhys is a satisfied little sound, a hum from the back of his throat when Joe presses the palm of his hand against his cock.

“Think I should do something about that.”

He gets Rhys off with just his hand, and as it turns out, actually, Rhys is a – well. Not a screamer, but louder than anyone getting a hand job should ever be. To be fair, Joe knows for fact that he's not exactly bad at hand jobs, but still. He kisses all the moans and groans from Rhys' mouth and doesn't even care, just relishes the feeling of Rhys' skin against his hand and the way he sounds, how Rhys' hands fist in the fabric of his shirt and the back of his hair, and, yeah. When Rhys comes, Joe licks it all from his hand, because that's only fair, right, even if he thinks he's always going to fucking hate the taste, and then it's quiet for a few minutes.

“So. Do you want me to drive you home now, or?”

Joe sits up on the side of his bed and runs a hand through his hair to make sure it's not too sex-messy. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

“You're not going to make this awkward, right?”

“Why would I make it awkward?”

“You're acting like it.”

“I don't know.” Joe stands up and makes his way to where the door should be. He opens it a bit and says, “well?”

“What?”

“You said you were going to take me home.”

“Yeah. I've got your glasses here, if you want...”

“Yes, please.” He holds out his hand and Rhys drops the pair of shades into it.

They go back downstairs and Rhys somehow manages to get them out the door without encountering any family members in the meantime, a thing which Joe is grateful for, really. Not that he doesn't like Rhys' family, but he's not really in the mood to look any of them in the face after he's just had his cock in Rhys' mouth. And yeah, he knows, of course he does, but it's the principle of it, all right?

For the first part of the car ride, it still stays quiet. Rhys puts on some 90s mix CD, and then, at some point during a Pulp song, while they're waiting at a traffic light or something, he asks, “so what, did that blow job not meet your expectations or something?”

“What?”

“You've been really quiet. Like you're mad at me for something.”

“I don't know,” Joe says, “it's weird.” It really is, in a way, because he's managed to pull a guy who hadn't spent the three years prior to that being his best mate, and also, because it almost feels like cheating, which is really, really weird. Fuck, he's got to stop thinking of Josh.

“Oh my god,” Rhys says. “You can't tell me that you've never gotten your dick sucked before.”

Joe tries not to start laughing. “What?” It doesn't really work. “Of course I've had my dick sucked before.”

Then Rhys is laughing too, soft and under his breath, like he doesn't want to own up to it. “Well, then stop being so weird about it.”

“I'm sorry.” Joe reaches for his fags, but then remembers once again that, right, he's all out. “I'm going to try. Bum me a fag?”

“Yeah, here.”

“Thanks.” He lights up and takes a deep drag, like that's going to make everything less weird. At least he can push the thought of Josh away for the moment. “And if it's any comfort to you, that blow job was pretty excellent.”

Maybe he should do something, something to reassure Rhys that it's all okay and not weird, so Joe reaches out and feels around for the gear shift stick, where he figures one of Rhys' hands must be. As it turns out, there is, and so he covers it with his own and doesn't squeeze down.

“Thanks.” Rhys moves his hand, just a bit, and finally, the car starts moving again. “I can tell you're good at romantic pillow talk.”

“What, is that something you want out of our relationship?” Joe asks and tries not to laugh.

A short pause, like Rhys is taking his time to think, and then, “not really, no.” He laughs, too. It's not weird.

The rest of the drive, they still don't talk much, but it's different, comfortable, and Joe doesn't think of Josh even once. When Rhys pulls up in front of Joe's house, they kiss each other goodbye, and Rhys says, “I'll call you after the holidays, yeah? Or during. Or tomorrow. As soon as I get sick of it?”

“Yeah, sure.” Joe smiles back at him and kisses him one more time before he gets out of the car and makes his way to the house.

The problem with thoughts about Josh is, they're just as hard to get rid of as other negative thoughts, and, just his luck, they resurface basically as soon as Joe closes the door behind him. It's Izzy who catches him in the hall this time, after he's put his cane away and taken off his shoes, Izzy who says, “you're a bit late.”

“Not that late,” Joe says, mostly out of reflex. He pauses for a second and realises that he doesn't really know what time it is, so he adds, “what's the time?”

“Well, it's past ten, so.” For a second, Izzy pauses, and then she says, “let me guess, you spent your time shagging your girly boyfriend?”

Joe says, “what the fuck, Iz?” and has to make an effort to keep his voice low enough for their parents not to hear, because, really, and then he adds, “you disgust me.” He laughs, though, can't not laugh at this whole dumb situation.

“Well, you've got bite marks all over your neck, and you weren't around Josh's today, so.”

Joe shrugs. The marks, right, and he wants to kick himself for not borrowing a scarf from Rhys to avoid any awkward questions. Then, though, the mention of Josh is enough to make his stomach sink so far that the marks feel like they don't matter any more. He wants to turn and leave, already, but then Izzy adds, “speaking of Josh. He called while you were gone.”

“What'd he say?”

“Said he'd wanted to come over tomorrow to give you your Christmas present.”

The thing is, Joe has been best mates with Josh for long enough to know that by that, he means sex, and he's pretty sure that Izzy has known Josh long enough to know that, too. “And?”

“Well, he's going to be here at two tomorrow.”

Joe says, “bloody fuck.” He opens the door down to the basement stairs, but doesn't leave quite yet.

“You don't reckon it's a bit wrong, shagging your ex behind your boyfriend's back?”

That's a sting, the kind of question that sinks deep into Joe's flesh and makes his stomach twist. “Of course it's wrong.”

“Yeah, but you're still doing it.”

“Yeah, fuck,” Joe says, “I'm going to bed.” He adds, just because he can, and not in the least because he hopes it will make the sting slightly lessen, “least none of the people I'm shagging is Tom.”

He's down the basement stairs before he hears a reply, but either way, it doesn't really work. The ache continues to twist deeper in his guts, and really. It's not like Joe has never thought about the fact that it's wrong before, quite the opposite, he's been painfully aware of the shittiness of this situation since that first time at Josh's, basically. Every single time he's gone and fucked Josh, really, and every time he's kissed Rhys, or gone out with him, or talked about their relationship with anyone. Every time he's around Rhys now, there's that nagging thought in the back of his mind that he's an arsehole, so yeah, Joe reckons that he's got an excellent conscience.

Still, though, there's something about having it just thrown in his face like that, and there's probably some fancy psychobabble term for why that is, but the point is, it fucking aches in Joe's guts and his throat and his head, and so, he spends the rest of that evening unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep. He's got a half empty bottle of vodka standing in the back of his closet, he's pretty sure, but he also figures that tomorrow is going to be hard enough when he's not hungover, so he doesn't drink. Instead, he puts on this record that Rhys borrowed to him and wishes he still had any smokes. The glass marbles feel too heavy in his head, as if the whole time, he'd forgotten they were there, but now he's remembered and they're weighing him down, like his whole body is being weighed down by something, really.

Feels an awful lot like teenage angst, and, honestly, Joe would have thought that he'd be done with that kind of feeling by now.

He ends up calling Josh at what must be two in the morning, if Josh's moan of, “fuck are you doing calling me at two in the morning,” when he picks up is any sort of indication, and asks him to bring fags, and Josh complains about the time of night some more, but in the end, he says yes.

It's another while after that until Joe finally does fall asleep, but when he wakes up in the morning, he feels surprisingly fresh and almost wishes he didn't. He takes a shower and eats breakfast, and then spends a few hours listening to the sound of mediocre music videos because there's not much else to do, and when his parents leave for town and Izzy tells him she's off to see a film with Tom, he's almost gotten over this whole Josh thing. It feels like a relatively normal day, a day that also happens to be Christmas eve, but still, and even when Josh shows up at the door, he does it with a loose hug around Joe's shoulders.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” Joe smiles, without really meaning to, and disentangles himself from Josh's arms, only to have the handles of a plastic bag shoved into his one hand.

“Got you a record, but don't open it until tomorrow, it's that Dandelion one Rhys talked to me about for ten minutes the last time I saw him, I put your fags there, too.”

“Thanks mate.”

“You've got any food here?”

They end up sitting on the sofa in the living room, Joe's feet in Josh's lap, and eating reheated lasagne from the microwave, and they chat about nothing much, really. It feels a little too much like earlier this year, or this time last year, or the year before, in any case, less awkward than it should. Joe doesn't mind all too much, and when, while Josh is talking about how much he dreads the thought of going home this evening and spending Christmas with his parents, they end up kissing, he's almost managed to drown out the nagging voice in the back of his mind.

“You want to go down to my room?”

“Yeah, in a moment.” Josh presses himself down harder against Joe, from where he's somehow ended up settled between his thighs, and buries his face in the crook of Joe's neck. He licks one of the spots that still ache from where Rhys' teeth had sank in, makes a shiver run down Joe's spine, and says, “nice hickeys. You slag been cheating on me?”

Joe knows that it's a rhetorical question, or that, at the very least, Josh isn't being serious, but he still has to make the obligatory quip of, “well, _technically_...”

“Well, technically, I had you first,” Josh points out, and his fingers slip into Joe's waistband. “But I'm glad you got around to shagging that poof. Was getting worried you'd given up on your slaggy ways.”

“'m no slag,” Joe says, but the thought is hazy, muffled by the sensation of Josh's weight pushing down on him and his warm tongue all over his neck, and then he adds, because he feels like he should say something to back that statement up, “only even got a blow job off him.”

“Blow job,” Josh repeats, voice vibrating at Joe's neck, “how boring. What's next, you gonna meet his parents and get married?”

“Already met the parents.” Joe knows that it's going to sting, and he also knows that Josh is an even better shag when he's mad about something, and he adds, “they love me.”

“Nice for you.” There's a hint of aggravation in Josh's voice, and that's satisfying, more than that, it makes Joe anticipate what's to come. Well, if he's going to be an arsehole and shag his best mate behind Rhys' back, he should at the very least make it worthwhile. “I'll be your best man at the wedding, but just saying, I'm still the better shag.”

Josh punctuates that last comment with a harsh lick and a touch of teeth to Joe's throat, almost painful but so, so good that it sends prickly shivers running down his spine, and Joe shudders.

“My room?”

“Anything you ask for, love.” Josh laughs, low in his throat, and tugs Joe up from the sofa by his hips.

They barely make it down the stairs without touching each other and tripping over themselves, and as soon as they hit the mattress downstairs, Josh's hands are working off Joe's shirt, his trousers, and his mouth keeps moving at his neck and chest, bites at his nipples and sucks at his hips.

He takes his time with actually fucking Joe, though, teases him with his tongue and then his fingers before he finally gets his cock inside, and Joe wails and whines and begs for it harder, and when he comes, he feels like, really, this whole Josh thing is more than worth it.

After, when he feels like he can walk again, or move at all, for that matter, he ends up going down on Josh in the shower. He gets both of Josh's hands in his hair, tugging and twisting, forcing him further onto his dick, and even when he's almost choking, feeling spinning-disoriented by it all, he doesn't complain or ask Josh to stop. Josh's making the most wonderful noises in the back of his throat, groaning and hissing and spluttering out obscene nonsense, and that alone, that makes it really, really worth it. He ends up coming over the side of Joe's face, at least he's had the decency to not do it down his throat, and then, for a while, it's quiet save for his harsh breathing and the sound of water hitting the tiles. Joe can feel Josh's hip heave with tremors where he's still got one hand planted onto the wet skin, and he thinks they should probably clean themselves up properly and get out soon, because the hot water probably won't last much longer.

“You all right?” he asks and runs his hand over the shaking part of Josh's flesh.

“Bloody brilliant.” Josh's thumb rubs over Joe's cheek, and then both his hands go down to his arms. “Hey, come here.”

They're kissing, again, and if Joe's mouth tastes in any way like cock, then Josh has the decency to not point it out.

“So I guess it's like riding a bike, then.”

“What's like riding a bike?”

“Sucking cock. Once you learn how to do it you never forget again.” He presses another kiss to Joe's lips, well, half his lips and half his chin, all sloppy and slobbery. Somehow, even with Joe's skin already wet from the shower, it's still disgusting.

“God, if you were my boyfriend I'd punch you in the face for that line.”

“Good thing I'm not.” Josh laughs and strokes from Joe's temple to his cheek again, removes the last traces of sticky come from his skin. The water begins to run cold. “You want to do anything else today?”

Joe shrugs. He kind of doesn't want Josh to leave yet, because maybe, as long as he's here and they carry on chatting and doing nothing like they did before, well. Before they started this fuck buddies thing, or maybe before Josh had cheated, or before they'd ever gone out. Before Rhys, if anything. Maybe if they just spend some more hours doing things like they used to, Joe can hold off on feeling guilty and stupid for just long enough.

“I don't know.” He reaches out and turns off the spray of water. “Get out of here first, I suppose?”

They end up sitting in Joe's room for the next few hours, on the bare mattress because neither of them want to bother with putting on fresh sheets just yet, and Josh puts on one record after the next. They order Chinese take out and talk nonsense, and it feels like before, even when Josh steals a few kisses. Yeah, Joe almost wants to say he's dealing with the whole situation pretty well, and when Josh leaves, the first thing he does is call Rhys. Maybe it sounds stupid, but he figures that as long as he isn't feeling overly guilty-and-stupid for fucking Josh once again yet, he might as well try and stay relatively happy as long as possible.

Besides, there's some feeling of comfort in there when Rhys picks up the phone and says, “hey love,” knowing that even when he's an arsehole who's fucking his best mate, Rhys still likes him, knowing that Rhys doesn't know, and wow. Joe decides to put that thought into a dark corner and never discuss it again until someday when Doctor Beaker inevitably will pull it back out, because, wow, he really is a bit of an arse, isn't he.

“Hey.” He smiles a bit when he hears Rhys' voice and doesn't even mean to. “How's your holidays going so far?”

“Don't even talk to me about it.”

“That bad?”

“Pretty much, yeah. What about you?”

“Not that bad, actually. Had Josh over today, didn't do much.” Joe coughs. There's a sort of uneasiness rising up in his stomach when he mentions Josh, as if Rhys could possibly know about them, and he tries to drown it out by quipping, “can only get worse tomorrow.”

Rhys laughs at his end of the line. “Least of all you haven't had to deal with three different people asking you if you'd gotten a proper job yet.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What, about Josh?”

“What? No, your family.”

“Yeah, they're terrible. Already had to tell them this year that my backup plan to marry some millionaire has failed, and I think they're legitimately upset about it.”

Joe laughs.

He spends the next fifteen, twenty minutes letting Rhys complain to him over the phone, occasionally adds some remark into it, but mostly, he just listens, or tries to. The thing about it is, Joe has always found talking on the phone a bit awkward, having someone's voice all tinny and faraway in his ear but no face to look into. He supposes that maybe, going blind should have made talking on the phone slightly less weird, but now, with Rhys, it's the exact opposite. Maybe because Rhys is a disembodied voice as it is, and hearing him without the physical contact, without the assurance that he's really there and real, that's pretty fucking weird, and why is it that the weird uncomfortable thoughts just have to come out when Joe is making an actual effort to avoid them?

Still, though, weird as it is, it's still comforting, still nice to have Rhys talking next to his ear, and when he finally hangs up, Joe manages to feel not all too guilty and stupid, and that feeling carries on all the way through dinner with his parents. The next few days, he mainly survives by hiding in his room and calling Rhys twice a day, to hear him complain about his relatives, and to complain about his own family.

“They're actually worse than usual this year,” he says, on Christmas day, after Rhys asks him how bad it is. “They all just keep pitying me.”

Rhys makes a sound of understanding, like he's asking Joe to continue.

So he does, “I don't even mean regular pity. I'm talking about support group level pity.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” Joe laughs, at the tone of Rhys' voice, and because it feels like he should. He lies back onto the mattress from where he's sat at the edge of his bed, and everything around him feels too empty, too without Rhys. His glass marbles ache in his head like a clogged throat. “And I keep telling them they should stop, that I don't want to be pitied because that's not going to give me my eyes back, but they don't listen.”

“I feel you.”

Joe isn't sure what to say to that. He makes a little noise of agreement, and then he has a thought. “You don't pity me, do you?”

“What?” It comes out confused, surprised, and then Rhys says, “no, of course not.”

“You'd tell me if you ever started pitying me, right?”

“What are you, my wife?” Rhys laughs. “But yeah, I'd make sure to inform you of it.”

“Rhys, this is a serious matter.”

“I know. I'm serious, I don't pity you.”

“Thanks.”

“I think you're dealing with it pretty okay.”

Joe smiles, even when Rhys isn't there to see it, and then says, “so. You thought about what we're doing the day after tomorrow yet?”

In the end, they decide that Rhys would pick Joe up at half twelve, they'd get food together and then see what happens, and when Joe hangs up, he feels like he can deal with the rest of those two days of obnoxious relatives pretty okay, like Rhys said. He does, in fact, although he still feels the need to complain when he calls Rhys again, and although he still doesn't leave his room all too much, but still, it's bearable. By his standards, he's dealing okay. He doesn't think of Josh all that much, so maybe that means he's dealing with everything pretty okay, but still, the day after Boxing Day, when it's finally time for Rhys to pick him up, Joe is more relieved than anything.

“Hi.” The first thing Rhys does after he's parked his car and walked the short way up to the door of Joe's house is take one of his hands. He's wearing gloves, woolly-warm and slightly damp with sweat already, to suit the icy weather, and Joe feels like maybe he should have worn something warmer than just his thin coat, because surprisingly enough, it's really, really cold out. Seems like the weather is just getting worse.

“Hey.” Rhys is all warm, though, his hand is, and so is his chest against Joe's, and his lips when they're kissing, just for a short second. “I missed you,” Joe says after they pull apart, even if it sounds overly sappy, because honestly, he kind of did.

“Only been three days,” Rhys observes, and then he laughs. “Missed you back, though.”

“You're lovely.” Joe grips that hand tighter, feels its heat between his own fingers. “So, where are you taking me today?”

“I was thinking Italian. That okay?”

“Yeah, excellent.” Joe smiles and just has to kiss Rhys on the cheek again, just because he can. Yeah, so maybe he's an arsehole, but Rhys is perfect, in that weird Rhys way he has, just by the fact that he's there, and yeah, maybe that means he doesn't really deserve this, but fuck it if he's not going to enjoy it while it's there. Maybe it would be better if Joe just stopped thinking about anything at all.

He continues to hold Rhys' hand over the stick shift in the car, after Rhys has taken his gloves off.

“Your hands are a bit cold.”

“Shit, sorry.”

“No, no, I don't mind.” Rhys laughs. “Should've dressed warmer.”

“I didn't think you'd be that long.”

“You could've just waited indoors, you know. I'm not scared of your family.”

Joe shrugs, not really sure what to say to that. He runs his thumb over the bony ridge of Rhys' knuckles, so much warmer than his own hand, and leans back in his passenger seat.

“You're not, are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Scared of me meeting your family.”

“I don't know.” Joe fumbles for his fags and lights one. It's the first one he's smoking since breakfast, and he feels like he's been craving it for ages. “Who are you, my shrink?”

“I mean, it's all right if you're scared, it's only been two months. I'm just wondering.”

“Maybe I am.” Joe laughs, a bit nervously, and goes back to touching Rhys' hand. He hopes he's not clinging on too tightly, and also, that his hand isn't sweaty. “Hey, can you turn that up? I like that song.”

“Yeah, if you just let go of my hand for a second...”

They end up sharing a pizza for lunch at this small place in Camden Town that seems to play nothing but Beatles songs over its speakers, and after, Rhys actually succeeds in dragging Joe to a record shop. Joe spends a good hour standing around awkwardly while Rhys rifles through rare singles and chats on and on about this and that, and it should be boring, but really, it isn't. After that, they walk around the streets for a while longer, and Rhys carries on talking and talking, because it seems he just never runs out of things to talk about. Occasionally, Joe nods and makes some remarks of his own, but really, he leaves most of the talking to Rhys this time.

Rhys seems to have picked up on it, because when they're standing in line to get coffee at this small kiosk on a corner, he asks, “you're really quiet today. Everything all right?”

“Yeah, of course.” Joe sucks on his fag and adjusts his glasses. He's got the feeling that they're all fogged up, not like it really matters, but. “Why wouldn't it be all right?”

“Because you're not usually that quiet.”

“Yeah, sorry.” He laughs, and it comes out sounding way too nervous once again, and why is he thinking about the fact that he's not good enough for Rhys yet again, and why does he have to think about anything at all, for that matter? “You're not really letting me talk much today.”

“Sorry. I'm not boring you, right?”

“Why would you be boring me?”

“It happens.” Rhys flicks his lighter. “Just making sure.”

“Rhys, we've been friends for over half a year, I think if you were boring me I would have told you by now.”

Rhys laughs. “Okay. Just, you know, if you ever think I'm boring you're going to have to tell me.” He reaches out and takes Joe's hand in his own, the glove still way too warm, and then adds, “and I'm going to tell you if I ever start pitying you. Deal?”

“Yeah, deal.” Joe nods.

Then they're up next in the line, so he digs into his coat pocket for his wallet and pulls out a five pound note after searching for a while. Rhys says, “yeah, that one,” under his breath, even when Joe has a pretty obvious system of folds and shapes to organise his money, and that's weirdly comforting, to think that Rhys is actually not perfect and kind of an idiot.

After the coffee, Rhys drives Joe back to his house, and they decide that the next day, they'll go out drinking.

“You should ask your mates to come along, maybe,” Rhys suggests, “would be nice to see them again.”

“I don't know,” Joe says, “I mean, Josh...” He stops himself right there, before he says anything that could be telling, and wonders if he's already said too much.

“What about Josh? I like him, he's pretty funny. Good taste in music.”

“He's been a bit of a twat lately.”

“Oh. And over what?”

“Well,” Joe starts, and starts searching for some explanation for why he doesn't want Rhys and Josh in one room that doesn't involve the fact that he used to fuck Josh and still does, and then, because he can't really find a good one, he goes with a vague, “you know, us.”

“He's not homophobic or anything, right?”

“No, no, he swings both ways, so. I think he just doesn't really like you as a person,” Joe says, lamely, and feels kind of like a dick for it, because he's pretty sure the only thing that really bothers Josh about Rhys is the fact that they're going out.

“Well, he's going to warm up to me.”

“Not conceited?”

“Confident, that's all.” Rhys laughs and flicks his lighter, but it doesn't seem to work, because then he says, “hey, you got any fire?”

“Yeah, here.”

“Thanks.” A fog of cigarette smoke hits Joe in the face, and Rhys says, “no, really, you should ask Josh, I think it would be good. Tom too, yeah?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Excellent.” Then Rhys' one arm is around Joe's shoulders, their mouths together, and Joe finally actually stops thinking.

He does call Josh later that evening, after dinner consisting of Christmas leftovers and his mum asking entirely too many questions about how his day with his boyfriend was. She seems to have taken this whole not-entirely-heterosexual thing pretty well, at least, so that's one less thing to be worried about, for the time being, but then, compared to the Josh situation, that wasn't even that big of a problem in the first place.

Still, the phone call goes pretty well, Josh is kind enough to not make any sexual allusions and agrees to meet them both at this bar that Rhys had told Joe about, and after that, he calls Tom, which goes down much easier.

The actual night also ends up being about as not-awkward as possible. They all take turn buying drinks, and neither Josh nor Tom brings up anything that could end up being uncomfortable or embarrassing, anything about the fact that Joe used to go out with Josh, which, really, isn't something that either of them ever bring up otherwise, but still, Joe is irrationally worried about it that night until he's too sloshed to worry. Still, though, it's nice, to have them all around him, Rhys sitting too close to his side, and to chat about music and stories and that, and, of course, the alcohol. By the end of the night, Joe is too off his face to walk properly, and Rhys has to ride along in the taxi with him because he's also too off his face to give the driver his address.

Yeah, it's probably embarrassing, because Joe knows that when he hits that level of drunk that makes him clingy and chatty, he gets kind of annoying and never really knows when to stop talking, if what Josh says is anything to go by. Still, though, it's nice, being able to lean into Rhys and absorb his body warmth, even when Joe is already warm with drunkenness himself, and to tilt his head up and press sloppy kisses to whatever part of Rhys he can find in the deaf-dark-absence around him. The whole blindness thing is actually a lot less disorienting and depressing when he's drunk, which is yet another reason why being drunk is so fucking great, the fact that it takes all those shitty feelings away. Another reason, the fact that Rhys, which isn't even a real sentence, but it's the only way Joe can describe it, just. Rhys.

Rhys is all warm and he's got smooth hands and skinny wrists, and pointy elbows and a soft belly, and all that seems way too apparent when Joe is slumped against his side with his hands all over Rhys, like they can't take in enough of the fact that Rhys is there. Rhys has a face, too, and Joe takes all of that in bit by bit whenever he leans up and kisses it, he kisses Rhys' nose and his cheeks and his thin lips and his pointy chin. His face tastes like skin, like soap and stubble, if stubble is even considered a taste, and like alcohol, or maybe that's Joe's own saliva that tastes like alcohol. Either way, it's all pretty fucking great.

Maybe the greatest part is that Rhys lets him, he laughs, sounding tipsy, almost as drunk as Joe, really, and when Joe's stupid drunk mouth talks of its own accord, he talks back to it. Most of the things that Joe ends up saying are about Rhys, too, about how happy he's made Joe and all the things Joe likes about him, the fact that he somehow manages to be not boring when he's talking about records for hours on end, and his taste in music and the way he laughs and how soft his hands are.

At one point, Joe says, “I love your mouth,” and Rhys laughs.

“I'm glad.”

“You have a great mouth, you know how to use it. For talking. And laughing and kissing, your mouth is great for kissing. So soft, I bet you use chapstick.”

“Yeah,” Rhys says, and then leans forward to press that lovely mouth to Joe's own. “I do use chapstick,” he adds, in the short second between two kisses, and then tugs at Joe's bottom lip with his teeth. It's hotter than it should be, to feel the clip and the sting of it, and Joe kind of hopes that Rhys will come inside when they get to his house, and that then he'll get the drunken fuck of his life.

“Great for other things, too,” Joe says, “great mouth. So soft, I'm in love.” He brings one hand up to thumb the corner of Rhys' lips, and licks into that wet softness again.

Rhys just keeps laughing, even when he kisses back.

“I want your mouth on my cock for the rest of my life, I think,” Joe says, and he's not sure whether he wanted for that to come out, but either way, it's true. “What a fuckable mouth.”

Even when Rhys is saying, “Joe, fuck's sake, we're in a taxi,” he's still laughing, so soft and so, so drunk, and so, Joe stops talking about his mouth and starts talking about other things he likes about Rhys.

The ride back to his house is long, or at least long enough for Joe's drunken brain to just keep finding things he likes about Rhys.

“I like when you buy me drinks. And I like when you talk to me about how my weekend was on Mondays and you tell me about all the things you did, like your record fairs and your friends' gigs and all that stuff and you still pretend that my weekend wasn't boring at all,” Joe says at one point, “and I love when sometimes you actually don't talk, you just sit there and you're there and Rhys and that's, that's really nice, actually.” He feels Rhys' chest beneath his hands, warm and vibrating with soft repressed laughter, and then adds, “like right now, yeah. Rhys?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I'm here,” Rhys says, and one of his hands tangles with one of Joe's.

“I love you.” Joe feels like his lip is too dry, so he wets it in his mouth, and says, “more than I'd ever loved Josh,” and then he realises that he really shouldn't have let that one slip out, but he's pretty smooth about making it sound less suspicious, he thinks. “And more than I'd ever loved Tom. And my sister and the rest of my family and that sounds really unhealthy, I know, but it's true.”

“Love you back,” Rhys says, “and I love how you get all sappy when you're sloshed.”

“I know you love it.”

“Yeah.” The car comes to a halt. “Hey, we're here.”

The driver says something in a thick accent, and Joe reaches down to unbuckle his seatbelt. He takes a few split second until he correctly gropes the handle of the car door, and then opens it.

“You reckon I should come inside with you?” Rhys asks, and in his mind, Joe already knows where that's going, and, yeah. He'd appreciate if Rhys came inside.

“Yeah. If you like.”

“Wait a second.” Joe can hear Rhys opening the car door on his own side, and then he's paying the fare and helping him out of the cab. “This okay?”

“I suppose,” Joe says and taps his cane onto the ground and, okay, he was wrong, he feels even more disoriented than normally. Rhys takes his hand and leads him up to what must be the door, slow and steady, and Joe feels like he's even drunker than he was twenty minutes earlier.

“Give me your keys, yes?” and Joe does, and then Rhys is leading him into the house.

“My room's down the stairs.”

“All right. You take your shoes off in the hall, or...?”

“Yeah, yeah, good plan.” Joe takes a second to toe his shoes from his feet, awkwardly, but then, he's pretty sure if he bends down he'll fall in his face, and then strips his coat off, while he's at it.

Rhys has his arm at Joe's waist when he leads him down the stairs, going “careful, careful,” all the while. Occasionally, he sways a bit where his chest is pressed up against Joe's own, and at one point, he trips and almost falls, but then they're down the stairs and in Joe's room. Rhys' fingers tug at the buttons of Joe's shirt, unzip the fly of his trousers and pull his clothes off, and Joe does the same to him in return, and it doesn't even take him all that long. When they're both down to their briefs, Rhys leads him over to the bed. Then he's close, all too close, his skin pressed smooth against Joe's own, trapping him there against the mattress, and they're kissing, just briefly.

“Mm, Rhys?”

“Yeah?”

“What're we going to do now?”

“Me?” Rhys' voice comes low and lazy, so close to Joe's face, his breath hot and smelling of booze, or maybe that's his own breath Joe is smelling. The rest of him smells like soap and whatever cologne he uses, and it seems so, so obvious, with how close they are, Rhys' bare chest pushed up soft against Joe, legs tangled together, and it seems like Rhys has way too much skin, suddenly. “I'm going to sleep. And you should, too, sleep some of that booze off.”

“You're no fun, come on.” Joe reaches one hand out and trails it down Rhys' back, and he's got even more skin there, skin and sharp ribs, and he's got a nice arse, too.

“Like you aren't too drunk to get it up.” Rhys laughs and Joe shrugs, since, admittedly, that's very likely.

“Don't be like that. At least let me...” and Joe isn't exactly sure how that sentence was supposed to end, but that doesn't matter, because at that point he leans over to kiss Rhys, and then he doesn't really want to stop kissing him.

Rhys hums in the back of his throat, and one of his hands moves to the back of Joe's head. He's all that soft skin under Joe's hands, one leg that presses into the space between Joe's thighs, and he also most definitely had a point when he said that, because if Joe was less drunk, he'd probably have a semi already. Still, even like this, just kissing and caressing, it's perfect, and Joe is pretty sure they stay like that until he drifts off to sleep.

The next morning, he wakes up with one of his worse hangovers yet, and to the sound of something soft and psychedelic on the record player, and, right, Rhys bringing him coffee and painkillers. They both decide right then that they'll never drink again, which is a bit too familiar, and what's also familiar is the fact that the night after that night they're out drinking once again, with one of Rhys' mates this time around.

The guy is quiet, with a deep voice and large hands, and he talks about art a lot. The bar they're in is small and smoky, and all the drinks are overpriced, and occasionally, Rhys' mate, who's apparently an illustration student and in a band, just won't talk for long periods of time. It's weird, really, especially with the low sound of some Cure record playing in the back and the hushed voices of the other bar patrons, and at one point Joe says, “you sure he doesn't hate me or anything?”

“He doesn't hate you, he's just really quiet.”

“Everyone's quiet next to Rhys, though,” the art student mate says, and, okay, fair enough. “You two want another round?”

That night, Joe doesn't get nearly as drunk as he did two nights earlier, which is still pretty drunk, and he ends up crashing in Rhys' bed instead of going home, and again, they're both too sloshed for anything other than lazy kisses. Joe really wishes he wouldn't mind, but. Really.

The night between those two nights out drinking, though, they stay in. Rhys leaves for a while to shower and change after he's gone out and gotten them both breakfast from the bakery down the road, but by late afternoon or early evening, he's back. By that time, Joe has the house to himself, too, because his parents have gone out to see a film, something like that, and Izzy is off to Tom's house, which, honestly, isn't something that Joe wants to think about for too long a time. Just the principle.

He and Rhys end up ordering a pizza and sitting on the carpet in Joe's room, and Rhys puts on the same album as early that morning while he goes through Joe's record collection. It's a pretty normal day, talking about music and things and kissing with pizza grease stuck to their lips, but in a way, it also makes Joe feel a bit nervous. Okay, perhaps not nervous but anticipating, because he hasn't had a bloke in his room since. Well. Actually, not since he got shagged by Josh on Christmas Eve, but he hasn't had a bloke he'd actually been going out with in his room in nearly a year.

Honestly, though, Rhys acts a lot like a hyperactive child looking through all of Joe's records. He's got something to say about nearly all of them, and Joe has to try his hardest to keep the conversation going. When he's done with the records, which is also about the point when the pizza is gone, he seems to have spotted the dusty drum kit in one corner.

“I didn't know you play drums.”

“Used to,” Joe says and points toward his glass marbles, a gesture which he guesses should have come out deadpan or with some gallows humour in it, but since he's got the very last slice of pizza in that hand, it kind of falls flat. “I've been thinking about selling my kit, since I never play any more and no band wants a blind guy for a drummer anyway.”

“Oh,” Rhys says. “I'm sorry. It's just, I kind of keep forgetting about that. Hope you don't mind too much.”

“It's okay. Better than the alternative, I mean, at least you don't keep talking about how blind I am and how bad you feel about that.” Joe shrugs and takes a bite from his slice of pizza. It tastes both too greasy and too dry at once, somehow, and he decides to blame the overall low quality of the particular restaurant they'd ordered from as opposed to Rhys bringing up something painful and shitty like that. He misses the drums a lot at times, jamming with Josh and Tom, as well as just. Well. Being able to see where the drums are. “Suppose I could still play if you point me in the right direction, but.”

Rhys laughs. “Do you mind?”

“Mind what?”

“Mind if I try it myself?”

“No, no, go ahead.”

Joe thinks he can feel the carpet shift slightly when Rhys gets up, and then, there's the first sounds of the cymbals vibrating when he sits down on the drum stool.

“I've only tried drumming around twice my whole life. So, forgive me if it sucks.”

Rhys starts off with a slow beat, something that Joe can't really place, for someone this knowledgeable about music he's got no rhythm whatsoever, and then he goes into an overly long solo which doesn't sound like anything remotely recognisable. Honestly, Joe isn't sure whether it's okay for him to laugh or not. He hides his smile behind one hand. Rhys finishes by going back to the beat from earlier and then playing a rim shot, and at that, Joe actually laughs.

“Are you laughing at me?” Rhys asks, mock offended, and he sinks down onto the carpet next to Joe again.

“Well, yes. Kind of.”

One of Rhys' hands swats at Joe's chest, rather uselessly, and he says, “stop it,” but he's laughing, too, his voice all high-pitched with the sniggers vibrating in it.

“Can't help it, mate,” Joe says, and because Rhys is right there, he reaches out and pulls him closer by the shoulders. “But you were having fun, at least there's that.”

“You insulting my lack of drumming skills?”

“Possibly.” Then, suddenly, the world does a flip and Joe's back is pressed against the carpet, with Rhys' weight on top of him.

Rhys laughs into his face. “Probably for the best I'm shit at drums. Would never be able to learn it, 'cause I've got noodle arms, don't think I'll be able to move them for the next three days.” His hands stroke from Joe's shoulders to his upper arms, where he's still got a bit of muscle built up. “Not like you, though.”

“God.” Joe laughs.

“God, what?”

“You're so, I don't know. So Rhys.”

“Am I a good thing?”

“Yeah, I think.” He's still laughing, can feel Rhys vibrating with laughter against his chest, too. Honestly, Joe isn't sure where this conversation is going, or if he even wants it to go anywhere, and so, he slots his fingers of one hand into the back of Rhys' hair, a bit damp and curly with sweat where normally it'd be sleek and soft, and kisses him.

Rhys makes a startled noise for a split second, but then he's kissing back, fingers of one hand already moving to the buttons of Joe's shirt.

This time around, when they're trying to take each other's clothes off while still placing messy kisses all over each other, they take their time. By the time that Joe pulls Rhys up by his wrists to lead him over to the bed, his shirt is open and hanging loose around his shoulders, his belt unbuckled, and he's managed to undo most of the buttons of Rhys' shirt as well. The bedsprings squeak painfully when both of them hit the mattress, and then, Joe's hands are back where they were before, tugging the rest of the buttons open.

“Wait a second, wait,” he says when he feels Rhys shifting under him, quick fingers working at the fly of his trousers.

“Wait with what?” Rhys' voice sounds all out of breath already, and when Joe undoes the last button on his shirt and pulls the fabric apart, his skin seems way, way too hot under Joe's fingers.

“Are we serious this time?”

“Serious?” Rhys repeats, once again, and, really, Joe is getting fed up with that.

“Are we going to fuck or,” he pauses to lean downward and kiss Rhys, just because his face is right there and his breath is all heavy and hot in Joe's face, “or are you just going to stop and go to sleep again?”

“What? Why would I be doing that?” and honestly, Rhys really needs to stop asking questions, but then he says, “yeah, of course we're serious.”

His hands come to the waistband of Joe's trousers to pull them all the way down his hips, and Joe reaches down to do the same to him. He stands up for a second to work his skinny fits all the way off his legs, and his pants too, while he's at it, and before he can fully lie back down, Rhys is flipping them both over. Then there's skin on skin, lots of warm, smooth skin and friction, too, the head of Rhys' cock, half-hard, rubbing against Joe's hip, and he gasps and pushes his fingers of one hand into Rhys' hair to keep him close, the fingers of the other hand fitting into the ridges of his ribs.

Joe isn't exactly sure what he wants, suddenly, some weird sort of everything-at-once, maybe, he wants to touch and kiss and lick and suck and fuck and get fucked, and he's not sure whether it's okay for this to be that overwhelming. At least Rhys seems to feel the same way, because his hands go everywhere, to Joe's arms and his ribs and waist and thighs and arse, like he can't decide what part to touch first, either. His mouth is everywhere, too, all over Joe's neck and his clavicles, and it's all a bit disorienting, like Rhys has way too many hands, suddenly.

He pulls off after what seems like ages, and after he's sucked at the side of Joe's neck long and hard enough that it's most likely going to leave a fat bruise.

“Hey,” Rhys says, and his hand runs over Joe's stomach, the old scar tissue there that tingles beneath his touch. “That's a pretty big scar.”

In the ten-odd years that it's been since that surgery, the mark has faded, or at least, that's how Joe remembers it from the last time he's seen it. It's not like what the scars on his face must look like, red and rough and stark against his skin, but the fact that it's there and that Rhys can tell it's there is bothersome in itself, and it makes him wonder how ugly it must actually look to someone who's not used to it.

“Yeah, sorry. Pretend it's not there?”

“No, no, it's all right. I've got a matching one, here, feel.” One of Rhys' hands wraps around Joe's wrist, drags it from where it was resting on Rhys' side to what feels like a sharp hipbone, and then a bit further upward. Then it's there, meeting rough faded scar tissue, and Joe traces one finger along the cut of it. A little, it feels like trying to decipher Braille, something like that, and that's really weird. He laughs.

“I had my appendix taken out when I was fourteen, or fifteen, I think,” Rhys says, and his fingers twine around Joe's yet again. “So, scar.”

“Mine's from something stupid I did when I was a kid.” Joe shrugs. “Not even a little kid, I mean, I must have been like nine.”

Rhys laughs at that and leans in to kiss him, just briefly, and that reminds Joe of the fact that, right, he's still hard, and he's still got Rhys naked on top of him. “When you're done talking about unsexy things like scar stories, can we get back to the issue at hand, maybe?”

“What's that issue you're talking about, here?” and okay, now Rhys is definitely doing it on purpose.

“You know.” Joe bucks his hips a little bit, until he can feel the head of his dick bump against Rhys' skin.

“Yeah, all right, all right.” Joe swears he can feel Rhys smile into his neck. “God, you sure know how to seduce a guy.”

Joe is about to say something in protest, about being still a teenager and therefore horny all the time, maybe, or that Rhys is an awful tease who takes way too much time and keeps digressing, but then he can't really say anything because Rhys is kissing him, once again. This time, it's deep, teeth-clicking and tongue-twisting and a bit too enthusiastic at first, before they find a rhythm.

Then the kissing part doesn't matter much any more either, one of Rhys' hands moves down between both of their torsos, when did Rhys get this close to him that their chests are touching. And then that hand is on his cock, both their cocks, and there's proper friction, slick with precome and a bit of sweat.

“This better?”

“Yeah, yeah, better.” Joe reaches up and pulls Rhys even closer, so close the thin sheen of sweat on Rhys' skin is sticking them together, so he can feel all of Rhys' skin against his own, and then he lets out a sigh that he didn't realise he'd been holding back. He can feel his skin crawling with arousal, or maybe something else, this is Rhys, after all, and, wow. Too many feelings.

Joe's got the feeling that he really needs to stop thinking, what's with the fact that Rhys is warm and naked and ridiculously hard on top of him, and then he feels teeth at his neck, followed by a swift soft tongue, so he does.

“Fuck,” he breathes, after a minute or three of just silently rocking into Rhys' touch, getting closer and closer without really meaning to, because he'd wanted to make this last. Then Rhys' mouth goes from where it was at his collarbone back up his throat, his tongue traces a stripe there before it licks into Joe's mouth.

“Fuck, what?” Rhys asks into the kiss, their mouths so close that Joe can feel it rather than hear it.

“Good.” It really is, not in the fuck-so-good back-arching nail-scratching toe-curling borderline pornographic way that sex with Josh is good, but a different, subdued kind of good that makes Joe feel like he's melting. Could still be better, though, and so he trails one hand down Rhys' spine, all the way to his arse to pull at the flesh there.

“Mm, careful,” Rhys says, but then he makes a noise that's all desperation and pent up frustration and all that when Joe does as little as press the pads of two fingers against his opening.

That's what does it for Joe, that drawn-out sound, and he's coming embarrassingly quickly and embarrassingly hard, sticky all over Rhys' hand and his own stomach. Rhys strokes him through it, kisses every single moan out of Joe's mouth, and Joe is grateful for that, really, as well as embarrassed by all the noises he's making, because. Really?

When it's over, after he's caught his breath for long enough, he presses a kiss into Rhys' neck, because it's the part he can reach easiest, and says, “shit, sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“You ask way too many questions,” Joe points out. “You know, for lasting five minutes when you were giving me a hand job.”

“Don't mind.” Rhys laughs and pulls back a bit, and then his hands are gone as well. “You make the worst face when you come, though, anyone else ever say that to you?”

“Yeah.” Joe thinks he can place the sound he hears from Rhys next, and he pulls a face. “You didn't just lick your hand clean, did you?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you're disgusting.”

“But you like me.”

“Yeah.” Joe laughs and reaches out to pull Rhys close again and place a kiss on his cheek, making a point of deliberately not getting his mouth, because, _ew_. “I do.”

The head of Rhys' cock smears wetly against his hip, and Joe figures he should probably do something about that, so he rolls them both over, more carefully than Rhys did earlier.

“So, should I return the favour now?”

“What, you want to lick my jizz off your hand?”

“What?” Joe laughs. “No, I was thinking of last time. Thinking I'd suck you off.”

“Oh.” Rhys says, “yeah, yeah, go ahead,” and by the time he's finished saying it, Joe has already shuffled down to between his legs.

He takes Rhys' cock in one hand, feels it warm and slick and kind of pulsing with blood, and then he darts his tongue out to taste it, carefully, without adding any pressure from the piercing yet. Tastes like, well. What the hell is cock supposed to taste like, but Rhys makes a soft little sound in the back of his throat, and that makes it more than worth it, Joe reckons.

“Hey, Joe?”

“What?”

“You can take your eyes out, right?”

“What?” and yeah, Joe is really glad that he's only just come, because he's pretty sure that if he hadn't, he would have just gone so soft that he wouldn't be able to get it back up for the next three days. He pulls his hand from Rhys. “Are you saying you want to put your dick in my eye?”

“What?” Rhys makes a noise that sounds like something somewhere between a gasp of horror and a laugh. “No, no, I was just... I saw that in a film once, I don't know why I said that.”

“The fuck kind of films do you even watch?”

“I don't even remember what film it was or when I saw it. Just the eye socket fucking part, so...”

“Rhys, if you ever say anything about fucking me in the eye again, I'm breaking up with you.”

“Sorry.” Rhys is still laughing, though, and Joe actually has half a mind to literally just stop and leave the room, but then, he can't exactly stay mad at Rhys, not even when he's saying this kind of thing. “Just, it seemed kind of obvious...” Then, “fuck, can we pretend I didn't say any of that?”

“Shut up,” Joe says, and because he knows Rhys well enough to know that he won't simply do that, he reaches out and folds his lips down over the head of Rhys' cock.

“Oh my fuck,” Rhys breathes out, and then he does the exact opposite of shutting up.

As it turns out, Rhys is surprisingly gentle when he's getting his dick sucked, or at least, he doesn't buck his hips or try to force Joe's head down further by his ears the way Josh does. Rhys lies there and lets Joe suck him off at his own pace, keeps his hips mostly still and runs one hand through Joe's hair while the other has its fingers tangled with Joe's. His mouth moves the whole time, though, through wordless moans and, “fucking hell, your tongue,” and, “that, do that again,” and, “where the fuck did you learn to suck cock like that?”

Again, Joe feels a bit too much like he's in a cheap amateur porno once again, but then, in some twisted way, it's really, really hot. Rhys even warns him when he's close, tells him to pull off and finishes on his chin, but some of it runs down all the way to his neck, true pearl necklace style. Joe supposes that's slightly less gross than if Rhys came down his throat, but still, he wipes himself halfway clean on the back of his hand almost out of reflex, really.

From Rhys comes nothing but heavy breathing, and Joe can't help but feel a bit smug over that. “So?”

“Fucking hell.” The hand that Rhys still has linked with Joe's pulls him back up the bed, or at least, it makes a weak attempt, but Joe is willing to let himself go slack and move along with it. “I need a shower.”

“Yeah,” Joe breathes. He lets himself sink into the sheets next to Rhys and gropes around on the bed until he finds the duvet that had been shoved aside earlier by one of them.

The room seems colder than normally, even when Joe is pretty sure that the heating is on, but the sweat on his skin is beginning to cool. His insides are warm, though, just as warm as Rhys is, and Joe dreads the thought of letting him go. That's definitely because he doesn't want to get cold, and not for any other reasons. Really.

“What time is it?”

“Bit past eight.”

“Oh.” Joe shifts a little bit closer and wraps himself around Rhys. It's probably too early for anyone to be back yet, but then, the basement's basically soundproof, and he dreads the thought of letting Rhys go. “Thought it would be later.”

Rhys laughs.

“You should probably go soon.”

“Are you kicking me out?”

“Not really, just. Would rather have the house to myself when my parents get here.”

“You're making us sound like some sort of forbidden romance. Shakespeare style.”

“What?” Joe asks, but he's laughing too.

“I don't know. It's weird.”

“What do you mean, weird?” A bit, he wants to cringe at the fact that he's the one asking too many questions now.

“Everything. You, mainly.”

Joe pouts a bit and sticks his tongue out.

“I like how weird you are, though.”

“Thanks. I guess.” Maybe he should respond to that, so he adds, “I like how chatty and weirdly obsessed with records you are.”

“Rude.”

“You're the one who started it,” Joe points out. He slides down on the mattress a bit until his head is resting on Rhys' chest.

“Love you.” Rhys pushes one hand into his hair, and Joe can feel his ribcage shake with repressed laughter.

“Yeah.” That hand scratches at Joe's scalp, almost uncomfortable, so he takes it by the wrist and lays it down to his shoulders. “Don't touch my hair.”

“Sorry.”

“Do you have any plans for tomorrow?”

“One of my mates asked me to go out drinking with him, I told him I might bring you along. If you'd like to, I mean.”

“Think I'd like to.”

“Excellent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a secret headcanon that Rhys Webb is that rare breed of person who thinks it's okay to bring up the concept of skullfucking (or any other disturbing subjects, really) in the middle of sex and I'm really really sorry.


	3. Chapter 3

So then, the next night, they go out drinking with Rhys' art student mate. New Year's Eve, they're at a party at the house of yet another of Rhys' mates, who, apparently, also knows Josh. That should probably be a bit awkward, but then, soon enough, they're all too sloshed for it to be awkward. Both Josh and Rhys just keep on bringing Joe drinks when he asks, all someone else's booze, so it's free, which is probably the best part. By the time it's midnight, Joe is too sloshed to walk properly, and by that time, he's also pressed against a wall in what he thinks might be a large closet or a small bathroom, with Rhys' mouth on his dick. Outside, Joe can hear the hiss and boom of exploding firecrackers. He's never liked fireworks all that much.

When the first few pop, though, so loud outside that it still seems loud even indoors, Joe slips a hand into Rhys' fringe and whispers, “hey. You're missing out.” He's figured that Rhys would like fireworks, all noisy and vibrant and kind of eccentric, so just like him, basically.

Rhys pulls away, his breath hot over Joe's cock, and whispers back, voice all heavy and deep with getting fucked in his throat, “not missing out at all. 's way better than fireworks.”

Then he sinks back down and, okay, he's certainly got a point. Still, though, when he ends up coming in Rhys' mouth, Joe can't help but feel a bit disappointed because this is all he gets, rather than the full-on skin-on-skin hips-against-hips toe-curling intense sex, and he briefly considers shagging Josh once he's not hungover to make up for it.

He does, a few days after New Year's, and then feels so bad about it that he feels like he has to take Rhys out for dinner to make up for it.

It's actually only a few more weeks from then until it finally does happen, but still, the wait feels almost unbearable, somehow. Joe doesn't talk about it with anyone, not with Josh, because then he'd just get laughed at, not Rhys, because that's a dick move, isn't it, complaining to his own boyfriend that he won't let Joe stick it in already, and certainly not Doctor Beaker because that would just cross every line ever.

So Joe just takes it up with himself, with that self-aware little voice in his head that sounds a lot like Doctor Beaker without actually being her. He supposes it's a stupid thing to complain about, but still, he should probably be at least somewhat professional about figuring it out either way.

It's not a physical thing, or at least not just physical. Not like he isn't getting any dick at all, because once a week or so, whenever he's out drinking with Josh, or just hanging around Josh's flat with nothing else to do, which is every time he's over Josh's, he gets fucked and it's pretty fucking fantastic. Maybe that means it's a psychological thing, which sounds so, so stupid, but then, the whole thing is stupid in itself, so never mind. Joe feels a lot like he's back to being fifteen and trying desperately to finally find a girl to shag, and maybe Josh had a weird point, about virginity growing back, he means. This is worse than being a virgin, though, because now, he knows what it feels like, and it's not like he doesn't like having his dick sucked, but that's not nearly as fuck-so-good brilliant as getting fucked up the arse, and he's pretty sure Rhys would agree. Not like he's got the balls to bring that up, though, because again, dick move, so all that he can really do for the time being is go off and shag Josh only to end up feeling guilty and stupid for it.

Maybe, that nasty little self-aware voice in his brain reminds him at times, the reason he's so desperate to shag Rhys already is because then, maybe, they will finally have gotten serious, as Josh would put it, and then Joe would finally be able to stop shagging Josh. Maybe, and Joe really fucking hates that little voice.

It's the week of his birthday, the week that it happens, and he meets Rhys at the St Sebastian's side entrance after Looking Forward, and after they'd spent the weekend without each other. The last time they'd seen each other before that, Rhys had explained that he's got some big family gathering to attend, somewhere in Wales, too. So Joe had spent the weekend around Tom, mainly, taking him out to a gig on Saturday and then for food Sunday, and that's most definitely just because he doesn't spend enough time around Tom any more and not so he can avoid the temptation of shagging Josh. Honest.

When Rhys bums him a fag and asks him how the weekend went, Joe shrugs and says, “pretty all right. Boring, though. Yours?”

“Shitty as ever.” Rhys blows a warm cloud of smoke into his face. “You know how it is.”

“Let me guess,” Joe starts, and even though his impression of a welsh accent is pretty terrible, he still puts it on when he says, “why don't you get a job?”

“Yeah, that's the main gist of it.” Rhys laughs, quietly, and Joe can feel it vibrate against his side.

For a small while, it's quiet, and that's nice, in a way, even though Joe's arse is freezing against the bare stone of the steps. At least it's no longer snowing.

“God, I want coffee,” Rhys says, eventually, and flicks his lighter again.

“Me too.” Something warm to fill him up at the very least. Joe flicks the butt of his cigarette away to somewhere. “Why didn't you get any from inside?”

“I don't know. Maybe because I want coffee that tastes good.”

“Fair enough.” Joe thinks for a second, thinks back to something Rhys said months earlier, and then says, “they've got a coffee shop across from here, right?”

“Yeah. You want to go?”

They both end up ordering the most sugary-sweet and overpriced item off the menu, which, honestly, is almost as disgusting as the bitter watered down support group coffee, but only almost, and at the very least it's actually warm. It's quiet once again, even with the bits of chatter coming from inside the church basement where the door is only half shut, and Joe feels like maybe he should say something, or maybe that he shouldn't say something and ruin the moment like that. He takes a sip from his coffee, which doesn't even taste the way coffee should taste, all sweet and creamy rather than sharp and bitter, and then says, “so it's my birthday tomorrow.”

“Oh. You doing anything special?”

“I don't know. Drinking, I guess.”

“You drink all the time,” Rhys observes, pressing one elbow into Joe's side.

“Still. You have to drink on your twentieth birthday, that's like a rule or something.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Rhys makes a strange amused noise and lights himself another fag. “God, I keep forgetting how young you are.”

“I'm only three years younger than you,” Joe points out, which, granted, is a bit childish, but still, it's not like Rhys acting like he's superior because he's old enough to be driving a car and having a degree is particularly mature.

“You're still a teenager for the next few hours,” Rhys says, almost mockingly. “I'm going out with a fucking teen.”

“Yeah, I bet that's the dream of all the other old farts your age.”

“Hey, rude.”

“You're the one who started it.”

“Because that's an incredibly grown-up thing to say.”

Joe can't really come up with a good comeback to that, so instead, he just laughs.

“You lose,” Rhys exclaims, triumphant, his voice all giddy and bright. He's an idiot and Joe really wants to kiss him about now.

“Yeah, and you claim to be an adult.”

Rhys just leans his face into Joe's shoulder and kind of shakes his head. He's shaking with laughter, too, all jerky like he's got the hiccups or something like that, which is a weird way of putting it, but.

“My parents are going to be gone this weekend, you know,” Joe says, both to get the conversation back into the direction it had been going in the beginning, and just so he can say something. “You should come over.”

“What, so I can prove to you that I really am an adult?” Rhys asks, and his voice comes out sounding so porn star-sleazy that Joe swears, swears to God, he's got to be wriggling his brows right about now.

“Was that you coming on to me again?”

“It's always me coming on to you.”

“Great.” Joe laughs and his hand slips accidentally (on purpose) from his own knee to Rhys' next to it, and Rhys covers it with his own. “Yeah, that's pretty much the exact reason I'm inviting you.”

Rhys just makes a sound of content and blows a thread of cigarette-smoke fog over into Joe's face, and, okay, maybe Joe is more excited than he should be about the fact that for once, things are going the way he likes it to. “Excited” is absolutely not innuendo for something. Certainly not.

The next night, they spend at Josh's flat, because it's cheaper than going out, and besides, Joe reasons, Josh has entirely too much booze in his flat anyway. It's a small round, just Joe, Rhys, Tom and Josh, and a bottle of Jack. After that's gone, they have Jaegermeister, and when the Jaeger is gone as well and they're all more than a bit sloshed, Josh finds a bottle of champagne in the kitchen closet. Since he reasons that there has to be champagne on a twentieth birthday, or any birthday, really, they drink that as well.

Most of the evening, they spend talking, about music at first, and then Tom makes the mistake of asking Rhys how their relationship is going, and how does it all work out with one of them being blind, no offence, so it all quickly degenerates into Josh making more or less tasteless jokes about their sex life and Tom cringing so hard that Joe swears he can physically feel it.

At one point, he goes, “please, can you just stop talking about anal already? I mean, you guys know I don't have any problem with being gay, and I'm sure that it can feel good, too, but that doesn't mean I like to picture you all with your dicks up each other's arses.”

It prompts a round of drunken sniggers around the living room, and Rhys coos, all bright and drunk, “aw, you're too straight for the lot of us!”

Tom starts to say something that sounds like, “there's nothing _wrong_ with being straight,” but then he's cut off by something and makes a rather startled noise instead.

“Mate, I don't know if I should be telling you this, but your boyfriend just snogged another bloke right in front of you.”

“Rhys?” Joe asks, only mock offended, but his voice comes out louder than it really needs to.

“It was _terrible_ ,” Tom complains, and from both Rhys and Josh comes nothing but choked off almost-girlish giggles. Joe makes a note to himself that the only thing more braying than Josh's annoying fake laugh on its own is Josh's annoying laugh combined with Rhys' equally annoying laugh.

“Aw, Joseph, don't be mad,” Rhys says, still in that same tone of voice, and then his hands are on Joe's shoulders, pulling him in for a kiss as if he had to make up for something, but it's the gross, nose-bumping too-much-tongue kind of kiss that tastes like bitter liquor.

When they pull apart, they're both laughing, and Joe says, “I'm not _mad_ , you idiot,” and Rhys just kisses him again, with slightly more expertise this time around.

“Tom, do you ever reckon we should hook up?” Josh asks, kind of out of the blue.

“What?”

“Well, I figured if these two are going to gay up the place we might as well gay back at them.”

“What? _No_ ,” Tom protests, but he's still laughing, and Rhys says, “sorry, you started it,” and squeezes Joe's wrist between his thin fingers.

“Hey, can someone pass the Jaeger?” Joe asks, and someone does, and it's easy.

He ends up crashing on Josh's couch after the champagne is gone, with Rhys half on top of him, after they've managed to touch on the topics of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a film which Joe has seen about ten times because it's Tom's favourite, acid, bad 80s porn and which one of them Tom would shag if he absolutely had to.

“Like, picture it as if it's some sort of fuck-or-die situation. You're kidnapped by aliens or something like that and they tell you that either you have gay sex with one of these three poofs or you're killed in the most painful way you can imagine,” Rhys says, and Tom makes a snorting noise.

“Well, um. Any specifics on what kind of gay sex I have to have with you?”

“I guess you'd be allowed to be the top,” Joe says, no need to be an arse, pun not intended, and Rhys goes, “yeah.”

“But you have to do it missionary position. And you can't close your eyes and picture you're fucking some bird up the arse or something,” Josh adds, and Rhys just about explodes with laughter. He slumps down against Joe's side, shaking and twitching, and Joe isn't sure what to do other than laugh along and wrap an arm around him and pat his side, feel him shake there too.

“Uh, okay.” Tom coughs in a poor attempt to disguise a laugh. “Well, then, I guess I'd go with Rhys. Are you sure he hasn't got a fanny, Joe?”

“My boyfriend doesn't have a fucking fanny,” Joe protests, but he supposes it would come out more dramatically if he wasn't also still laughing.

“Why are people always saying I look like a woman?”

“You do look like a woman,” Josh points out, “it's your hair, you need a haircut, you look like an ugly little sad witch or something.”

“At least my hair doesn't look like something the cat dragged in.” Rhys' voice was a bit hysterical with being drunk before, but now it's full-on shrieking, so he actually almost sounds like a woman.

“Don't talk shit about my hairdo, it'll eat you up.”

“Did you just imply that thing you call a hairstyle _eats_ people?”

Instead of a proper reply, Josh just laughs, loud and shrill, and he's too far gone, definitely too far gone.

“No, no, but, Tom. Are you serious?” he asks after a few seconds, sounding almost sober, if it weren't for that certain heated giddy tone in his voice. “Out of all of us, you'd rather shag Rhys?”

“Yeah, I mean. Why not?”

“I'm flattered, but sorry, mate, I'm taken.”

“I'm insulted that you'd rather have Rhys than me. You'd rather have Rhys than Joe, too, have you seen how fit Joe is?”

“I'm not _fit_ ,” Joe protests, still laughing. They're all too drunk for this conversation to be taken seriously in any way.

“Sure you are, mate. Tom, you sure you don't want to sleep with this fine piece of man?”

“Sorry, but I'm heterosexual. I like cunt,” Tom butts in, so matter-of-fact that it sends the rest of them into sniggers once again.

“So that means you'd rather shag a bloke who looks like an ugly woman than a fit one?”

“Josh, stop calling my boyfriend fit.”

“Come on, have you seen his arse? You could bounce a pound coin off of that.”

Yeah, that's about the point when it gets through to Joe's drunk brain that right, Josh is making comments about his arse right in front of his boyfriend, so he says, “stop it, Josh!”

“Aw, don't get your knickers in a bunch.”

Instead of replying, Joe leans over to where he knows Josh is sitting on the carpet and swats him in the face, but then he ends up laughing anyway.

In total, Josh makes a pass at Joe at least five times that night, offering him birthday sex at least twice, and the entire time, Joe isn't sure how serious he's being. Either way, he resists the advances every time, and when he wakes up the next morning, okay, noon, to an empty couch with both Rhys and Tom nowhere to be found and Josh asks, “so, how about that birthday sex, then?” Joe just shakes his head and says, “I have a boyfriend, Joshua. And I'm hungover.”

He figures that that's a good sign, that maybe, the prospect of shagging Rhys really is keeping him from shagging Josh once more, and he makes a mental note that maybe, if he ever stops being useless and traumatised, he should try and become a therapist or something like that.

By the time that it's Saturday and Rhys arrives at his house early evening, Joe still hasn't taken Josh up on that birthday sex offer, which is one of those things that Doctor Beaker would call a “personal victory”, something like getting better at reading Braille or going somewhere he hasn't been before without being accompanied, or even getting out of bed on a day when he hates everything, and it really, really shouldn't be one of those.

“So, what have you got planned for tonight, then?” Rhys asks, after Joe has lead him to sit on the sofa in the living room, a thing which he did for no good reason at all, actually, but he figured it was better than just having him stand in the hallway.

“I don't know,” Joe says, after he's sat down on the couch as well. “I was thinking we could eat dinner, obviously.”

“Very well thought-out.” Rhys prods Joe's ankle with the tip of one foot. “Please tell me by dinner you don't mean ordering pizza again.” He pauses for a second and adds, “gonna take more than a shitty pizza to get me into bed, you know,” and then laughs at his own comment.

Joe would roll his eyes if he could. “We could get sushi? They've got this place not too far from here that's pretty good.”

“Sushi.”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds good.”

And it is good. The sushi, and, well, everything else. They hold hands and talk nonsense on the way to the bus stop, and it all seems really familiar. Comfortable, maybe. On the bus from the sushi place back to his house, Joe places one hand on Rhys' thigh and rests his head on his shoulder, and when Rhys asks him if he's tired, he just grins and says, “not really, no.” Very subtle of him.

When they're finally there, after a ride that seems way too long, and, okay, maybe Joe is a little bit desperate, or contact-hungry, or excited, or a mix of the three, Rhys puts a record on downstairs and then sits down on the bed next to Joe. “So,” he says.

Joe says, “so,” back.

“What are we going to do now?”

Maybe Joe feels a bit too much like a teenager for immediately thinking of sex, but then, by the time the last song starts playing, he's got Rhys on top of him, naked and rolling his hips down, and there's sweet, slick friction, so Joe reckons that he must have been thinking in the right direction.

When the record stops playing and the room gets that much quieter around the soft noises that keep spilling from Rhys' mouth and that Joe can't keep from slipping out either, he pauses for a second to catch his breath. Yeah, it's not the first time they've been in this position, but it all seems so much more apparent right about now. Rhys' hands seem that much smaller and softer when they're all over Joe, stroking down his ribs, over his hipbones and wandering down to cup his arse, like he can't decide where to touch. Rhys circles one thumb over Joe's nipple, the touch so slight it runs a shudder down his spine.He's ridiculously soft under Joe's fingers, too, his stick-skinny arms and his slim thighs, skin warm and smooth all over. Joe wonders if he uses moisturiser or something girly like that. His torso is all soft, too, he'ssofter and, well, squishier than someone who's this small and thin in Joe's arms should be, but then, his arse is round and firm to the touch. What a lovely arse.“Hey, Rhys?”

“What?” Rhys replies, quiet, but in the silence of the room, it seems loud. His voice is already trembling a bit, riled up, and, okay. Joe wants this, not just because of the obvious physical part, but he wants more of that, wants to hear Rhys all too-far-gone and horny and louder than this. Wants to make him feel good, as cliché as that sounds.

“So, are we going to do the full sex now?” Way to ruin the moment.

A short pause, and Joe is pretty sure he can feel Rhys' ribcage shake with repressed laughter against his own. “What?” Rhys asks, all giddy and exasperated. Then, “I can't believe you just asked that, I feel like I'm about to sleep with a fourteen year old.”

Joe pouts. “At least I haven't got a fourteen year old's dick,” he says, and when he realises what that sounds like, he leans up a bit to press an apologetic kiss to the first part of Rhys he can reach, which happens to be his chin.

“Gross. At least I don't come after two minutes just from having my dick touched.”

“That was one time, hey.”

Rhys laughs and bows his head downward that slight bit until their foreheads bump against each other. “It's okay. Still love you.”

“Love you back.” It doesn't feel all that weird to say. Joe presses his hand down on the nape of Rhys' neck and pulls him just close enough for a proper kiss, and Rhys makes a content little sound in the back of his throat.

“Do you have any lube?”

“Yeah, bedside table,” Joe says, and adds, “condoms, too,” and tries his hardest not to think about the fact that he bought those because of Josh, not Rhys, and, fuck, why has fucking Josh always got to get in the way?

“Good. Hang on a second,” and then Rhys' hands and his body heat are gone.

Joe has the desire to whine at the loss of contact, so he does, but then Rhys is back with his full weight and his friction, and pecks Joe's lips just briefly.

“So. How are we going to do this?”

“What do you mean?”

Rhys asks, “tops and bottoms?” and he sounds almost shy, as if this was his first time. Somehow, it's a bit too endearing.

“I'm not sure,” Joe says and shrugs, because, really, every time he'd thought about sex with Rhys he'd just figured that he wouldn't mind doing either. “It's probably easier if I bottom, I reckon.”

“Do you want to do it like that?”

“Of course I want to.” Joe brings one leg up to hook around the back of Rhys' thigh, as if to reassure him or something, feels more friction and the slow drag of Rhys' cock over his stomach. Yeah, that's good. “I don't really care who does what as long as I'm having sex with you, I suppose.”

Rhys makes a small, fond noise and kisses him again, and then there's the sound of lube being squirted from the bottle, and Joe's breath hitches in his throat, in anticipation, mostly.

Rhys is careful when he coaxes Joe open with slick, thin fingers, always asking, “is this okay?” after every few movements, when, really, Joe doesn't think there's anything Rhys could be doing that would possibly be not okay. He takes his time, fans his fingers out slowly and only presses them against that good spot teasingly, but when he does, it makes Joe squirm more than it should.

“Rhys, come on, hurry up. You're acting like I've never had a cock in my arse before.”

“We've got time,” Rhys says and laughs, like he knows how much of a tease he's being right now, but then he crooks the two fingers he has inside Joe again, pushes into his prostate full on, and that's good, really fucking good shivers that jerk all the way through Joe's body.

“Yeah, we do,” Joe admits, and a part of him likes it like this, likes taking his time. The rest of him really doesn't, though. “But I'm horny.”

“All right, all right.”

When he actually fucks Joe, Rhys is careful as well, and again, ridiculously polite. He doesn't push Joe's knees back into his chest so hard he can't breathe or claw at his flesh, or bite hard enough to draw blood, although he does sink his teeth into Joe's neck and collarbone a couple of times. His thrusts are easy, slow, and it's nice, in a way, so Joe brings his legs up to Rhys' waist to keep him close. Rhys talks a lot during sex, too, small little fragments of sentences that don't make much sense, when he's close and too far gone to keep his lips attached to Joe's or his thrusts regular.

After he's slid his cock in all the way for the first time, after Joe bit his lip and squeezed his eyelids shut over his glass marbles, Rhys asks, “hey, is this good?”

“Feels like having a dick in my arse,” Joe says, deadpan, but honestly, that first stretch is always going to be uncomfortable, he reckons. He slides one hand down to stroke at his own cock, make it better, and says, “bloody fantastic.”

Rhys laughs and kisses him, teeth in his already-puffy lip. “Good.” He rolls his hips a little bit, and they both sigh, almost in unison. Joe feels full, just full enough, and the head of Rhys' cock rubs over his prostate softly when he pulls back and then thrusts in again, and, yeah. Joe lets out a way too embarrassing moan.

“Hey, if I say something weird right now, would you punch me in the face or leave or something?”

“Depends. Does this weird thing involve you putting your dick near my eye sockets?” Joe thinks that would have come out a lot better if Rhys hadn't thrust against that good spot inside him mid-sentence, causing him to squeeze his eyes shut and gasp.

“That was one time, and no, it doesn't.”

“Tell me, then.”

“Mm, okay.” Rhys drops a kiss to Joe's collarbone and says, “your insides feel really good around my cock, you know?”

“How's that weird?” Joe asks, even though it kind of is, but he's too far gone to be really bothered by that notion. To be fair, Rhys' cock feels really good inside his... well. Insides.

“I don't know, my ex told me that once and it kind of creeped me out at the time, but I guess he had a point.” Rhys laughs. Maybe this whole topic should be unappealing, and it kind of is, but the way that Rhys is fucking into Joe with slow, stuttering thrusts is too good to be a real turn-off.

“You don't ever shut up, do you?”

“Make me,” and Joe does, by pulling Rhys downward by his hair and licking at his mouth. He takes the time to pause for a second and whisper, “can you go faster?” before he goes back to kissing Rhys and rocking his hips up. Rhys obliges, slips his hands into the spaces behind Joe's knees and bends them further back just a bit, and, yeah, fuck.

Later, when they're done, after Rhys has wiped them both clean on the sheets, he curls up against Joe's side and presses his face into his neck. Their skin sticks together with sweat, all heated and heaving with deep breaths, and after it's quiet for a few long moments, Rhys says, “so. Was this a good birthday present, then?”

“You got me sex for my birthday?” Joe asks, almost in disbelief.

“I figured you deserved it. Birthday sex.”

“Yeah.” Joe smiles and runs one hand up Rhys' sweaty back. “Excellent birthday present.” He pauses to kiss Rhys, just for a short second, and then says, “so, am I going to have to wait another year until we get to do that again?”

Rhys laughs, softly, into the crook of Joe's neck. “No, no. Probably won't have to wait for long at all.”

“Excellent.” Joe shifts a bit, trying to get comfortable with all of Rhys' pointy-bony parts poking into him, and then he has a thought. “Hey, can you try and not make this awkward tomorrow morning?”

“Why would it be awkward?” Rhys asks, voice already coming out heavy with sleepiness.

“I don't know. Because it's always awkward.”

“Well, then I'm going to try my hardest to make it not awkward.”

“Great.” Joe leans up to press another kiss to Rhys' lips, and then, he doesn't feel like he's got any more to say, so he doesn't say anything. He can feel Rhys' breath stilling slowly, and he's pretty sure he drifts off fairly soon after that.

When he wakes up again, he feels both like he's slept for too long and like he hasn't slept enough at all. Next to him, Rhys is still asleep, or at least, still all soft and slack and quiet, and he's not sure what time it is, or whether he should try to go back to sleep. That's a thing that's really bothersome, in a way, no longer being able to just tell himself to go back to sleep and shut his eyes, and it's made falling asleep really weird, but until now, that had never been that apparent. It must have been ten minutes of trying to think nothing and just focus on the soft heaving of Rhys' chest and the sound of him breathing, when Rhys stirs below his arm and asks, “Joe? Are you awake?”

“Sort of. What time's it?”

“Early. Bit past seven.”

“You reckon we should go back to sleep?”

“Don't know,” Rhys says and turns until he's half on top of Joe, and, oh. “There's other things we could be doing.” His cock is pressing half hard against Joe's hip, and come to think of it, yeah, there's definitely things they could be doing that aren't sleeping.

“Round two?” Joe asks, and instead of a proper answer, all he gets is a muffled noise when Rhys brings their mouths together.

It doesn't take long until Rhys is fully hard, rubbing slick against Joe's own erection, and Joe wants more, needs more than just skin grinding over skin. “Rhys, come on, can we already...”

“Yeah, sure.” The sound of the bottle of lube being uncapped, and then the sound of the actual lube squirting out, and Rhys is so heavy in Joe's lap, all hot, sweaty skin and dick dragging hard against Joe's stomach, his legs framing Joe's hips, and somehow, it all seems so much more intense now than it did last night.

“You're not putting it in me again,” Joe says, “still a bit sore from last night.” Really, he wouldn't even mind all that much, but then, he'd just much rather be the one to fuck Rhys this time, just to see what it feels like.

“I'm not gonna,” Rhys starts, and he pulls away. Joe pouts a bit at the loss of contact, yet again. This time, he can still feel Rhys' thighs at his sides, though, and his sharp hipbones underneath the palms of his hands, like some little reassurance that Rhys is still there.

“What are you doing?” Joe asks, but immediately feels stupid for it, because then he can feel Rhys' hips moving beneath his fingers, hear little gasping noises fall from his mouth, and yeah, it's obvious what Rhys is doing now, and also, just the breathy, vulgar sounds of it alone, really fucking hot.

Joe brings one hand around to grab at the flesh of Rhys' arse, kind of tempted to dip them inward and touch him where he's currently getting himself open, and Rhys makes a soft little sound. He rips a condom wrapper open, the sound cutting sharp into the quiet of the room, and rolls the rubber down over Joe's dick with one hand before running the other one, lube-slick, over it.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Rhys leans down and licks at Joe's lips, tender and careful until Joe relents and lets Rhys kiss him properly.

He feels like he's way too warm, suddenly, like the room is too warm and Rhys' heated skin is too warm under his fingers, too.

“You ready?”

“Of course I'm ready,” Joe says, almost whispers it, as if talking at a regular volume would ruin the moment.Rhys' fingers are at the base of his cock again, and then there's the slow, velvety-hot squeeze of his insides around it.

Joe holds his breath, almost overwhelmed by the tight heat, and tries his hardest to focus on not coming right away. When Rhys is fully seated, heavy above him again, he finally exhales, they both do, and then Rhys rocks his hips just softly.

“Fuck.”

“Fuck, what?”

“It's been ages.”

Joe isn't sure what to say to that, whether he should offer to be more gentle or something, and he must have made a face or something, because Rhys quickly adds, “no, no, it's all right. Feels amazing.”

His lips come to meet Joe's once again, kiss him deeply and slowly, and he rolls his hips faster, contracting and sliding around Joe's dick, and, fuck. He gasps, low in his throat, and Joe can almost feel it vibrate against his lips.

“Okay, okay,” Rhys says, “I've got it,” before he sets up a steady rhythm.

He rides Joe hard and fast, then, grinds his hips down to take him as deeply as possible, and the whole time, he just won't stop talking. Rhys goes, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” low in the very back of his throat, hisses and moans and fucking _howls_ , like a wounded animal or something like that, loud, too, and Joe is ridiculously relieved that there's no one who could possibly hear them. The entire time, Rhys' hands keep moving, too, like he still can't decide where to put them, too enthusiastic and eager to touch, but then Joe grabs him by the wrists and pins them down into the mattress. Like this, with all their hands otherwise occupied, the only contact between them is their mouths meeting and their hips rolling into each other, that much more intense to the point where it makes Joe shiver, and Rhys makes a surprised squeaking sound and goes limp in Joe's grip.

“Is this all right with you?”

“What?” Rhys' voice sounds heavy, too close, both in the physical sense and the close to coming sense, and Joe has the feeling neither of them are going to last much longer.

“I can let go,” Joe says, between too deep gasps for air, and runs his fingers over Rhys' wrists.

“No, no, don't,” Rhys whispers, that bit more desperate. He grinds his hips down even faster, and, oh, _oh_ , so that's how it is, and Joe leans up to catch Rhys' lips in a deep kiss.

It's only a minute or so until they both come, and when Rhys does, it's with a small series of moans, steadily getting louder, all of his muscles going completely taut, and that sends a deep, deep shudder down Joe's spine. He only manages to buck up into Rhys a few more times before he comes, too, quieter, but so hard it knocks all the air from his lungs.

After that, for a few seconds, they just stay like that, Joe's fingers stroking softly over Rhys' arms, before Rhys makes a pained sound and disentangles himself. He fits himself underneath Joe's arm and throws one arm across his chest, and he makes a small noise into Joe's neck that sounds almost like purring.

“So. How was that?” Joe asks, and he can't help but feel a bit smug.

“Mm, fucking hell,” Rhys says, all satisfied and soft and fucked out.

“That a good or bad fucking hell?” and it's obviously the former, but Joe just really, really wants to hear it to be sure.

“Very good. I feel like I just lost my virginity. Again.”

Joe laughs. “Well, I heard somewhere that when you don't have sex for a long time, it actually starts to grow back. Your virginity, I mean.”

“Where'd you hear that?”

“From Josh, I think.”

“Maybe you shouldn't listen to Josh,” Rhys says, laughter still in his voice, and that almost stings, still.

“I know I shouldn't.”

A small noise that Joe can't exactly place slips from Rhys' lips, and he asks, “so. You reckon this was not-awkward enough?”

“Yeah.” Joe wraps one arm around Rhys' skinny waist, even though it's kind of uncomfortable, and pulls him closer, just because he's there, and also to push any and all thoughts of Josh away. “I'm hungry.”

“Mm, me too. Shower first, though?”

Joe shrugs. Really, he's beginning to feel disgusting, the dried sweat and come from last night still sticky on his skin, and now he's twice as sticky, twice as gross. God, sometimes he hates sex. “Shower sounds good.”

“Come on, then,” Rhys says, surprisingly enthusiastic considering that he's just been fucked, and considering the hour of the morning, and he squirms out of Joe's grip and pulls him up by one hand.

After the shower, after they, honestly, spent more time kissing and touching than actually getting clean, Rhys takes Joe out for breakfast at the café down the road, after they'd both realised that there was no decent food in Joe's house. It's not awkward, or at least the least awkward morning after Joe's had yet. Later that day, after lunch consisting of frozen orange chicken, when Rhys has left, Joe is standing outside on the porch with a cigarette when it really hits. What “it” is, he's not really certain, maybe that he and Rhys have, by Josh standards, officially gotten serious, that now, he'll be able to finally stop this whole Josh thing, or maybe, the fact that he's actually still going out with Rhys, although that really, really should not be considered an accomplishment.

The next Tuesday, after yet another decidedly not-awkward hour spent with Rhys outside St Sebastian's side entrance, Joe spends the evening at Josh's flat, because Josh doesn't have any morning classes on Wednesday and he spent at least five minutes convincing Joe that they should get drunk once again over the phone the previous evening.

Josh has far more liquor in his flat than anyone should have, but it's not like Joe is complaining, because right now, he's sitting on the couch with a half-empty bottle of Baileys in his hand, or maybe he should be saying half-full, trying to stay positive, and also Josh's feet in his lap, which is definitely a lot less awkward given that Joe is already more than a bit sloshed. There's a mix CD of shoegaze noise playing on the stereo, and Josh has spent the past ten minutes or so going on about this thing Tom did when they were out at this pub Saturday evening.

“What, so you're gay for Tom now? Me and Mike not enough for you any more?”

“What?” Josh laughs, all drunk and annoying.

“You've just spent ages talking about him, you sound like a teenage girl.” Joe coughs and raises his voice up as high as it gets and says, mockingly, “dear diary, I think I have a crush on Tom, he's so funny.”

“Fuck you,” Josh says and kicks at Joe's side, but he's still laughing.

“So it's true, I knew it.” Joe pauses for a second and takes a large sip of the whiskey. “Knew it from the moment when you asked him to hook up with you.”

“That was a bloody joke, god.” One of Josh's hands pries the bottle from Joe's fingers, and then he says, “he didn't even say yes.”

“Aw, I'm sorry,” Joe coos, “but you know what they say, all the good ones are straight.”

“Are you implying that Tom is straight?” That drunken laugh again, and then Josh pushes more of his weight down into Joe's lap. It doesn't feel all too weird. “Wouldn't be surprised if getting that snog from Rhys has awakened his inner bi-curious self.”

“Thought you said Rhys looks like a woman.”

“Yeah, he does, he's like... the first step, or something. To be the full gay, first you have to get with a little ladyboy poof like Rhys and then you can start shagging guys who look like actual guys.”

“You're so mean,” Joe says, laughing. He snatches the Baileys back from Josh and doesn't drink, just holds it there in his hands.

“I'm honest. All I'm saying is, I wouldn't be surprised if Tom was re-evaluating his whole sexuality right now, you should probably be careful.”

“Are you about to make a joke about Tom shagging my sister?”

“Possibly.” Josh's foot prods him in the side again. “I mean, you're basically the same, I wouldn't be surprised if Tom decides to go after you first.”

“Gross.”

“What's gross about that?”

“I've got a boyfriend, I don't want to shag Tom.”

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure Izzy didn't know she wanted to shag him either, he's just got that effect on people.”

“Tell me again you're not gay for Tom.”

“Why are we talking about Tom, anyway?”

“You're the one who started it. Being all gay for him, and that.”

“Stop saying that,” Josh protests, and then the whole world shakes a bit, his weight is off Joe's lap, but the next second, it's pressing him down against the arm of the couch and Josh is pulling the bottle out of Joe's grasp. “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it.”

“What's so bad about being gay for Tom, then?”

“You fucking suck. I'm going to go smoke a fag. Mike says I need to stop smoking indoors.”

Josh stands up and then he's gone, soft sound of repressed giggles still coming from somewhere in the distance, then the screen door to the small balcony opening. And because Joe isn't really sure what else he should do, and also, because he's beginning to crave one himself, he gets up and goes to join Josh.

Outside, the night is crisp and cold, and for a few seconds, after Joe lights up, it's quiet, and it's awkward. For the first time that night, it's awkward, and Joe has a thought, a thought that he maybe shouldn't be having considering how normal and just like before-Rhys the rest of the evening had been. That's the shittiest way of putting it, saying before-Rhys, but honestly, it hadn't been nearly as terrible and awkward before Rhys had entered the picture, not even during the time when they'd just broken up.

“So,” Joe starts, “did I tell you I finally shagged Rhys over the weekend?” and he regrets it pretty much as soon as it's out of his mouth.

“What?” Josh asks, more startled than Joe would have expected him to be, maybe, but then he seems to have processed that information. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I just figured, thought I'd tell you.” Joe sucks on his fag, but the nicotine can't burn away the shaky nauseous feeling of regret and awkwardness in his gut. The cold night air cuts into his face, and he feels more sober than he should.

“Well,” Josh says, and he makes a small noise that Joe can't quite place. “So, was he. Was he good, or?”

“He was great,” Joe says, and then he immediately feels like a bit of a berk, so he adds, “not as great as you, I mean.”

“Hm.” Josh's voice comes from far too close, and then his one arm is warm over Joe's shoulder. It feels weird, now. He presses a kiss to Joe's forehead, and that's really, really weird.

Joe feels both entirely too drunk and not nearly drunk enough to deal with this. “And he really doesn't have a fanny.”

“That's a shame,” Josh observes. “Kind of.” He's ridiculously warm, even when Joe is freezing, even through the heat of being drunk and the fuzzy jumper he's wearing, which, okay, he may or may not have taken from Rhys a week or two ago, and so, Joe leans back into Josh.

“Do you reckon I can kip here tonight?”

“Do you mean on the sofa, or...?”

“Yeah. Sofa.” Joe moves a bit closer, which, okay, is just making it weirder than it already is, but in his defence, it's cold. He lights himself another fag.

“Okay, then. Stay here.” Josh isn't moving, just standing there all warm and solid, and that feels like before-Rhys, too, but a different before. The weird kind. Everything is weird.

“And you're sure that Tom isn't going to be offended if I sleep here?” Slightly less weird.

“Why are you so set on me being gay for Tom?”

“Because you're gay for everyone, you slag.”

“Hey, rude.”

In the end, Joe doesn't shag Josh before he actually crashes on his couch, and Josh doesn't try to come on to Joe, but by the time that Joe takes the bus home hungover the next morning, they haven't actually called it off, either.

That weekend, after Joe makes a point of not bringing up Rhys, sex with Rhys, or Josh up to Doctor Beaker, Rhys takes him to a tiny gig of some fuzzy indie band and buys him drinks the whole night. After, when it's so late that Joe's legs are no longer steady, they make their way up the stairs to Rhys' bedroom as quietly as possible, before collapsing onto the bed in an awkward tangle of skinny limbs and kisses.

When they're both naked, after having peeled each other's clothes hastily, and Joe has pushed all the way to the hilt into Rhys, he asks, “are you sure we should do this? I mean, what if your family...”

“They're not going to hear, relax.” Rhys pulls him down by the shoulders for a quick kiss, and adds, “and I mean, it's not like it would be the first time they heard me,” and that's a statement that's both kind of disturbing and not surprising at all, considering just how vocal Rhys tends to get.

“It's still weird,” Joe insists, but Rhys just kisses him again, his cheeks and his jaw and neck, soft and careful and maybe he can deal with weird for once.

“Yeah, maybe it is. Can you move, or?”

“Just try to be quiet, please.” Joe rests their foreheads together and strokes over Rhys' hips with both hands, as if to convince him, somehow.

“Yeah, I'll try,” Rhys says, a soft laugh in his voice, and leans up to kiss Joe yet again. “Come fuck me, now?”

“All right, yeah.”

And Joe does, as good as he can when every creak of the mattress cuts into the silence so harshly he's almost scared it will wake up the rest of the house. Surprisingly enough, Rhys is pretty good at staying quiet. He buries his mouth in Joe's throat and sighs softly into every kiss, and other than that and the bed, the room is so quiet it almost makes Joe shiver. Still, though, Rhys' breath is hot against Joe's skin, his voice occasionally whispering out little fragments of “harder,” “yes, fuck,” and “just like this,” and his skin all heated and soft, and that, that feels almost safe.

After, when Joe has curled into Rhys' side and Rhys has draped the duvet all around both of them, it still feels a lot like that, like home, which is both an incredibly odd thing to think and also something that sounds too much like something a teenage girl would say. Still, though, it's true.

“Hey, Rhys?”

Silence for a few seconds, then a soft voice. “Yeah?”

“You awake?”

“Well, I am now.” Rhys sounds mildly annoyed, voice heavy with sleep, but his one arm still wraps that bit tighter around Joe's waist.

“Sorry.”

“It's all right. What d'you want to tell me?”

“Nothing much. Just, I'm glad we're going out.” It sounds stupid and obvious, Joe realises that, but he doesn't exactly regret saying it.

“I can't believe you woke me up just to tell me that.” Rhys presses a kiss to Joe's forehead, the same spot between his brows where Josh had kissed him earlier that week. Why has he got to think of that now, but now that the thought is there, Joe can feel Josh's lips all too heavy on him. “But I'm glad we're going out, too, yeah.”

Hearing that is reassuring, or at least, it's enough to push any thought of Josh back out of Joe's mind. He wraps his fingers tighter around Rhys' side where he's already got his hand resting and he's pretty sure he falls asleep soon after that.

Maybe that all means that whatever he has with Rhys really is getting serious, that it's love, or something like that, as overly sappy and also fucking scary that sounds. The problem is, though, the week after that, Joe goes out to the pub with Josh and Tom, no Rhys, because of a family emergency or something like that, and later that night, he finds himself back at Josh's flat getting fucked into the mattress once more.

The morning after, Joe doesn't tell Josh that it's the last time, or that maybe, they need to stop, and when it happens once again, he still doesn't. That time, they're not even slightly drunk, and neither the time after that, but still, Joe hasn't got the something. Guts, or balls, or nerve, or anything else that people would call it, to break this whole fuck buddies thing off, and he's not even sure why.

He tries to reason with that Doctor Beaker voice in his head a number of times why that is, during moments when he's feeling particularly guilty and stupid about it all, but he can't really get a straight answer. It's probably not an emotional psychological thing or whatever, because it's not like he's all that attached to Josh, or at least he hopes. Even if Josh was attached to him, which he probably isn't, well, they'd already broken up once and even that had been less terrible and awkward than how things are between them now. Probably means it's just laziness on Joe's part, then, or maybe some gross mental issue that lurks somewhere deep in his brain and that only the actual Doctor Beaker could ever coax out of there, and no way in hell is he going to discuss this with her.

Joe's pretty sure that it can't be a physical thing, either, because at least once a week, after a gig or a night out at the pub or Looking Forward, he and Rhys go back to whose house is closer and shag, quiet and careful, or, on the occasion that they've got the house to themselves, not so quietly. Other than that,Rhys takes Joe out toplaces, to strange little restaurants that smell like spices and play world music, club nights dedicated to obscure genres and record fairs, which Joe somehow manages to find not completely boring, and in a way, it's almost stupidly perfect.

He tells Doctor Beaker about that during one therapy session in March, which doesn't really feel much like March considering how ball-freezing cold and awful the weather outside still is.

“I suppose it's going great,” he says, as usual, when she asks him how things with Rhys are going, something that had become a regular part of each session since Joe had first mentioned they were going out.

He doesn't mention that things are going pretty great, if in a different sense, with Josh too, given the fact that only yesterday he and Tom had been over at Josh's flat to eat cheap Chinese, listen to psychedelia and take acid. Later that night, after Tom had left, he'd gotten fucked into the living room carpet so hard that he still had a bit of the burn aching on his knees now. A sore arse too, for that matter, so Joe shifts a bit in his upholstered chair to try and find a more comfortable position, but he doesn't really succeed, before he says, “kind of stupidly perfect, really.”

Doctor Beaker makes a tiny noise of discontent. The tip of her pen runs over the page quickly and all too scratchy, and Joe wants to cringe at that sound. “Joseph, do you remember what I told you in regards to relationships last year?”

“What do you mean, last year?”

“Right around the time you began going out with Rhys, I believe.”

“Possibly. Could you tell me again?” Joe straightens his back, which honestly doesn't help with the stinging pain in his arse, but from Doctor Beaker's tone of voice alone he can guess that he's about to be lectured.

“Well, you'd been saying that you still had trouble with getting over your last relationship with Joshua, didn't you?”

Trouble. Yeah, fuck, Joe certainly does have troubles in regards to his relationship with Josh, but perhaps not in the same way as he did back then, and also, he's pretty sure he knows what conversation she's referring to. “Yeah.”

“You recall what I said back then, that this combined with your still vulnerable state of mind could pose as a reason why you shouldn't start a new relationship this soon?”

“Yeah,” Joe says, once again, and now he really does feel like he's getting lectured on something. Also, like she's making him out to be some fragile little thing, and that's almost insulting, really. “But I think I'm a lot better now than I was back in October.” He coughs and craves a fag. “That was October, right?”

“Yes, I believe.”

“That's almost half a year ago. Things can change.” Almost, Joe feels a bit childish for saying that, but then, to be fair, he's not particularly in the mood to hear what Doctor Beaker is no doubt about to say. He's got enough trouble with the whole Josh thing as it is, he doesn't need to bring being mentally traumatised into it.

“Yes, but the problem is, and I don't say that to imply that you're delusional, the human mind, especially the mind of young people, and of people with post-traumatic stress, tends to see things black and white. We only really focus on one issue at a time.”

That sounds vaguely familiar, like something he might have picked up from a magazine or one of those awful daytime television talk shows his mum watches, and so Joe says, “yeah. I know,” mostly to seem not completely stupid.

“What do you say is the biggest influence in your change for the better, as you put it, then?”

“I'm not sure.” He knows that answering “Rhys” would probably not be the smartest move, but, honestly. “I suppose Rhys played a big part.” Maybe he should add something to defend himself from what's about to come, so he adds, “I mean, obviously he's not the only good thing that's happened to me. My mates are starting to adjust to the whole accident thing, they're finally treating me like a normal person again, but still, Rhys is really important, because he's different.”

“Hm.” Doctor Beaker's standard hum she does every time she's pondering something, and then, the pen scrawls for a pretty long while. Joe grips the suede of the chair's upholstered arms tighter. “And what do you think you would do if Rhys broke it off?”

The question comes after an unusually long silence, but that's not the only reason why it jolts. Yeah, Joe has contemplated it more often than he probably should, Rhys leaving him for being insecure and overall a shitty person, but still, to have the possibility of it in his face like that stings a bit. “I'm not sure.” Joe coughs and says, “I mean, I told you that I've thought about that before, but it's always just that thought, what if Rhys breaks up with me. I'm not sure what I would actually do.”

Doctor Beaker makes a sound of understanding, and the pen scrawls again.

“I guess I'd be pretty sad, obviously, but other than that.”

“Do you think you'd be able to carry on doing this well if you didn't have Rhys with you any more?”

The thing is, Joe knows where this is going. He's become self-aware enough and overheard enough on the topic to know that this is about codependent relationships, or whatever that's called. Honestly, it's not like he needs Rhys, because he's pretty sure that after a while of moping, he'd be able to very well carry on with his old miserable life before Rhys. He wouldn't exactly mind, at least.

Still, though, when he finally answers the question, it's with, “no, I don't think.”

“Well, Joseph. I'd say, for your own sake, it would be for the best to detach yourself from the relationship.” The pen scrawls, and Doctor Beaker adds, “I'm not saying you should break up with Rhys, but if I were you, I'd try and focus on other aspects of your life.”

Joe shrugs. He takes it all in, and then he says, “all right.” There's an ache in his gut, deep and rising up his throat, and he feels like he might vomit if he doesn't get to stop thinking about this all, soon. “Can we change the subject, please?”

After the session is over, Joe stands outside the building smoking a fag, and when he's done with that, he smokes another one. Only after that does he dig his phone out of his pocket and call Rhys.

“Hello?”

“Rhys? Can you pick me up?”

“Where are you?”

“Outside my therapist's office.” When Rhys doesn't answer immediately, Joe adds, “please. I'm sad and need some cheering up and it's cold and raining.” It really is, only drizzling down a bit, and normally, Joe would just ignore it, but right now, it's enough to ruin his mood even further.

“I don't know. I don't get off work for another hour.”

“Can't you leave early? Not like you even get paid for it.”

A pause. There's soft breathing on the other end of the line, like a small reassurance that Rhys is still there. “I'm going to go talk to my boss. Stay where you are, yeah?”

And Joe does, even though he bloody well feels like just taking the bus right back home with his bad mood and all, he zips his jacket all the way to the top and sits down on the steps to the building's entry.

Rhys shows up after maybe twenty minutes, when Joe feels like his balls may fall off at any moment, but he apologises for being a bit late and kisses him on the cheek and then takes him out for coffee, so Joe decides to not be mad about it.

The thing is, as much as it might come off as being unhealthy and codependent, this whole thing he's got with Rhys really is stupidly perfect. Still, though, over the next few weeks or so, Joe actually follows Doctor Beaker's advice. He spends more time with Tom, or Josh, although that tends to end in the two of them fucking, so more often than not, Joe just sticks to being with Tom. Really, it's not like his social life ever revolved around Rhys at any point, but still, it's nice, to go out to gigs and pubs with just his mates, like before Rhys and Before The Accident.

He's still around Rhys a lot, obviously, after Looking Forward meetings and on afternoons when Rhys doesn't have the afternoon shift at work, or over nights when he does have the afternoon shift the day after. They go to cheap gigs and sit around in coffee shops, and a lot of the time, they just stay in and listen to records and more often than not, they end up tugging each other's clothes off.

Sometime in April, when the gross and cold of the winter has finally melted away and Rhys has saved up enough of his mediocre record store employee wage, they take a train all the way down to the coast and spend a few days there. They stay holed up in their hotel room with take out and cheap white wine bought at the shop around the corner for the nights, and the days, they spend sitting on the beach with Rhys' old portable record player and a bunch of singles, sipping cold fruit smoothies with vodka mixed in. It's really quite perfect, in a sense, even if Joe has a spot of peeling sunburn on his nose and his shoes filled with sand by the time they get back.

One time in May, what must be really close to the one year anniversary of when they first met, which, to Joe, feels really, really weird, that he's only known Rhys for a year, they're lying on the bed up in Rhys' room.

“Do you ever think about running away?”

It comes after a long silence, after Joe had been almost certain that Rhys has fallen asleep. “What? Do you mean like, another getaway?”

“Kind of, I guess. But on a larger scale.” Rhys wraps himself that bit tighter around Joe and adds, “just taking a plane and starting over somewhere else.”

Joe isn't sure what to say to that, and also kind of too sex-exhausted to really think about it, so he just pets Rhys' hair with one hand and makes a little humming sound.

“Not right now, of course, maybe in a year or two. When I've gotten. When I have a proper job that makes enough money for us to afford that.”

“Rhys, I've lived here since I was born. I don't think I'd be able to deal with living somewhere else.”

Rhys sighs, quietly. “Sorry. I forget, you know.”

The room is warm, both with the early summer air outside and their body heat, so Joe pushes the duvet down his body a bit, only for Rhys to pull it back up.

“It's all right.”

“I used to think about that with my ex, you know. Running away.”

“Very courteous of you, to bring up your ex after I just fucked you so hard you squeaked.”

“I don't bloody squeak during sex.”

“Course you do, you just don't listen to yourself. Makes you sound like a girl.”

“Fuck you,” Rhys says, almost squeaks, really, despite what he said, and one of his hands swats at Joe's chest ineffectively. “And yeah, well, I didn't mean it like that. I'm just saying.”

A small pause, during which Rhys disentangles himself for a moment, then the flick of a lighter and the sharp smell of cigarettes.

“Hey, can you bum me one?”

“Yeah, sure.” Rhys presses the filter of a cig between Joe's lips and lights it up, and Joe takes a drag.

“Thanks.”

“I always wanted to run away to France. Not Paris, like, the Mediterranean part. With the coast and all. Or Spain or Italy.”

Joe just nods, can't exactly think of anything to say that isn't either overly negative or a sad attempt to change the topic. Besides, hearing Rhys talk about things he wants is nice, whether it's running away abroad or just this new band whose album he can't wait for, because then his voice gets all bright and calm and happy.

“Faris wanted New York or Tokyo or Chicago. Something with bright lights and tall buildings where you can make it big with art.”

The name sounds familiar, somehow. “Faris. Not many people with that name out there.”

“You've met him before, you know. Quiet guy, in a shitty band, likes art.” Rhys pauses to blow a whiff of smoke into Joe's direction, and then adds, “we were out drinking with him after Christmas last year, remember.”

“I didn't know he was your ex.”

“I don't really talk about it much. We started going out when I was twenty and he was sixteen, so.”

“Gross. I knew it, you've got a thing for younger guys.”

“In my defence, he didn't really look sixteen.”

Joe laughs.

“And we broke up early last year. Before I met you.”

“But you're still mates now,” Joe says, and maybe it sounds a little bitter.

“Yeah, but I wouldn't go out with him again. I mean, I like him a lot, but.”

“Yeah.” Hearing that is reassuring, in a weird sense, even when Joe wouldn't take Rhys to be the kind of guy who cheats on people with his ex, and that's, once he thinks about it, a really gross thought, actually. “Do you think you'd ever have sex with him again?”

“What?” It comes out genuinely shocked.

“You know, like, no strings attached ex sex. Would you do that?”

“That's a really weird question.” Rhys pauses for a second and takes the cigarette out from between Joe's fingers that he'd almost forgotten was there. “Could've burned yourself there.”

“Just a hypothetical question. I just want to know.”

A short silence, and Joe can feel Rhys' breathing where he's still got one arm under him, all deliberate and controlled. “I don't think I would. I mean, we're both seeing other people now, and...”

Joe cuts him off. “Yeah, but what if you didn't care about that?”

“I still wouldn't. It would just be really weird, especially since. The reason we broke up in the first place.” Rhys' voice is quiet, all monotone, suddenly, and Joe doesn't think he's ever heard him sound like that before. He's got the urge to move closer and wrap his arm around Rhys that bit tighter, so he does. “And I do care. About you. I mean, I like you a lot.”

Joe can't help but think of Josh, yet again, and he feels like the biggest cunt in the world. He needs something to distract him, he reckons, so he moves until he's half on top of Rhys. “When did you say your mum gets home, again?”

“Not until half eight. We've got another two hours.”

“Great.” Joe leans down to press a kiss to Rhys' lips, takes the bottom one between his teeth for a split second. “How about round two?”

“Fucking hell,” Rhys says, and he laughs. “Wish I still had the stamina of a twenty year old.”

He obliges, though, pulls Joe all the way over him and gets him open quickly with two fingers. They fuck slowly, all hips rolling into each other softly, and when Joe comes, it's good enough to run shivers up his back and push all thoughts of Josh away for good. After, when they've both taken quick showers, Rhys drives Joe back to his house, and honestly, there's a bloody reason why Joe likes him more than he probably should.

The problem is, though, something is always bound to go wrong. Maybe that's the kind of thought that should make him worry about the state of his self esteem, but then, looking back at how his relationship with Josh ended, and with how, right, he's got the kind of bad luck where he'll get into a car with a stranger and have his eyes completely destroyed by shrapnel, so really, he reckons that by now he's got a bloody right to expect everything to go wrong eventually.

When it does go wrong, it's summer, June or July, the part of the year when the weather outside is hot and either desert-dry or sweating humid and Joe mostly deals with it by staying in his cold basement room unless he absolutely has to go out. Rhys has been busy over the last few weeks, another staff shortage at the record store, apparently, so Joe has spent the first half of that particular Saturday lying on the carpet, listening to this synthesizer-heavy psychedelic record he'd borrowed from Tom, and nursing his hangover from last night. He's smoked through half of what was left in his pack of cigarettes, and he's this close to just drifting off like that in the middle of the carpet when there's a knock on the door and a soft voice.

“Joe? You awake?”

Honestly, it's a bit startling, to have Rhys' voice appear out of nowhere, but Joe is too lazy to really make an effort with reacting accordingly. “Yeah, halfway.”

The door creaks and Rhys steps in, quiet footsteps on the carpet. “Your mum let me in. I just got off work, figured I'd stop by.”

“My house isn't anywhere near between yours and that record shop you work,” Joe points out. “Not complaining, but.”

“I took a detour.” Joe thinks he can feel Rhys' weight sinking down onto the carpet next to him, and then his head is pulled into Rhys' lap, Rhys' fingers running softly through his hair. “Just for you.”

“Fair enough, then.” Joe laughs, all quiet and fond. “How's your week been?”

“Terrible. Work all day, and then by the time I get home I'm usually so tired I just fall asleep right away.”

“'cause you're getting old.” Rhys scratches at one spot on his scalp, probably more by accident than anything else, but Joe reaches for his wrist and pulls Rhys' hand from his head. He feels a bit too much like a small animal being petted.

“Rude.” Rhys puts his hand back to where it was and says, “I don't think I ever want to see another record in my life.”

“Sounds pretty serious,” Joe says, and he can't help but let a small amused noise slip out with it, too. “Why don't you just quit and find a job that actually makes decent money?”

“You sound like my dad. Gross.” Rhys laughs back, though, and his one hand moves to take a hold of Joe's. “So what've you been doing?”

Joe shrugs. “Not much. The usual, I suppose, went round Tom's a few times, and I was out drinking with Josh last night.” He pauses for a second, for emphasis, and then adds, “'m a bit hungover.”

Rhys' other hand strokes over his head once more, and he says, almost mockingly, “aw, you poor thing.”

“Stop touching my hair,” Joe insists, and he swats that hand away once again.

“Sorry.” Rhys laughs, all light and soft and, well, Rhys. Joe isn't sure if there's an actual word for what he is. “You want me to help you make it better?”

“Make it better, how?”

“Well, I'm sure we can think of something.” Rhys laughs, all soft and seductive, and, oh, yeah.

“Is that the real reason you came here? For a shag?”

“Well, that too,” Rhys says. “Mostly just wanted to see you, I suppose.” Then he says, “sorry about that one,” and, god, he's such an idiot, still.

Joe just laughs, though, and because he figures that actually, a good shag probably would make his sore head feel better, he sits up on the carpet and turns to where he knows Rhys is sitting. His one hand finds Rhys' knee, and then his lips find Rhys' mouth. “I don't really mind.”

“Okay, okay.” Rhys' arms ring around Joe's neck, all bare and still warm from outside, and pull him close, and Joe presses him down into the carpet.

It doesn't take long until they're moving from the carpet to the bed, and by that time, Joe has Rhys' thin t-shirt pulled over his head while Rhys' hands are working at Joe's shirt buttons.

“God, I've missed this,” Rhys says between kisses, almost whispers it against Joe's lips. “Missed you.”

“Me too.” It's been nearly a week since they'd last had time enough to do this, and Joe didn't think he would have missed Rhys' soft skin under his hands as much as this until now. Rhys leans down for another kiss, and then he pulls away to push Joe's finally unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders.

There's a small moment of silence when he's got it halfway off, just hanging down Joe's arms, and then, Joe can feel it. Underneath his hands, all the muscles in Rhys' back go tense, spine and shoulder blades pushing out from the skin, and then he's shaking, just a bit. And Joe's brain goes... blank, in a weird sense.

What the hell is he supposed to do now?

“Rhys?”

The weight in Joe's lap pulls off, as do the hands that were fumbling with his shirt just moments earlier. Rhys sounds like he's taking deep breaths, dry heaving, maybe, and Joe just asks again, “Rhys?”

And, yeah, what the hell just happened?

It's so quiet that Joe almost feels like Rhys isn't even there, so, just to make sure, he runs one hand along the sheets until he meets what feels like a thigh. He doesn't touch it, though, instead just pulls his hands back toward himself and crosses his arms in front of his chest. What this feels like, it's a lot like having a bucket of ice-cold water emptied out over his head, when it's so apparent that he's done something wrong, but can't figure out for the life of him what it is. The room feels colder than it is, goosebumps running up and down his back and chest in odd patterns with every shaky breath that Rhys takes, and Joe wraps his arms tighter around himself, like that could possibly warm him up.

That's when he feels it. A fat bruise under his ribs, from Josh last night, no doubt, and he's pretty sure he's got a matching one on his hip. He's probably got scratch marks somewhere there, too, but he doesn't check for them, because in that moment, it becomes completely apparent how much of a fucking cunt he really is.

Joe buttons his shirt back up, as quickly as he can with unsteady fingers, and starts, “Rhys, I'm sorry, I can explain.”

Explain it how, he's not sure of that yet. “I've spent the last eight months or so fucking my ex and I couldn't ever find the willpower to stop,” maybe, though that would just make him seem like an even bigger cunt.

“No, no, I'm sorry.” Rhys' voice is all hollow, almost sounding vacant, like he doesn't really mean it. “I'm sorry, I just. I can't do this.”

“Do what?” Joe asks, and immediately feels like an idiot, like what Rhys is talking about should be completely obvious to everyone, except for him, apparently.

“I can't talk about this. Not right now.” Rhys takes another two deep, deep breaths, Joe can clearly hear them, and then the bedsprings sigh when he gets up. “I'm going to go home.”

Footsteps, once again, and then the room is completely quiet. Joe's chest feels tight, as if he was about to cry, if he could, or the tightness of feeling sick. He lies back into the sheets, still cool, untouched by body heat, as if Rhys hadn't even been there, and he feels like he's choking on his own tongue.

Joe dreads thinking of it like that, but Doctor Beaker must have been right, because he lights a cigarette and then another one. He feels his throat swollen and his guts heavy, his lungs filled with water and his glass marbles too big and fake inside their sockets, the way he hadn't felt in months. The feeling doesn't go away for the rest of the day, or the day after. Once or twice, he thinks about calling Rhys, but he doesn't, because it's not like he'd have anything decent to say.

By the time that he drags himself back out of bed, it's Monday afternoon, after his mum had threatened to call Doctor Beaker for an emergency appointment at least four times and after he'd spent most of two nights staying up and aching with this, this post-traumatic depression, as it's supposedly called. He takes the bus to St Sebastian's fifteen minutes early and waits for the church basement to fill up, but no Rhys comes to sit by his side or offer him coffee. That's not really that unusual, yet, because sometimes Rhys will get stuck in traffic or something like that, but still, it only serves to make Joe more miserable. He sips his shitty coffee and waits for the meeting to start, and then, when it's his turn to speak, he says, “I'm Joe. I've had my eyes ruined by shrapnel in a car crash and now I'm blind. And right now I'm really fucking sad for reasons which aren't exactly unrelated to that.” And it's true, because if it hadn't been for this whole accident thing, he wouldn't have ever met Rhys, or if he had, it would have been in different circumstances and maybe he wouldn't have ever shagged Josh again and thereby fucked it up.

From wherever he's standing and speaking in his boring voice, Dan-or-Damien the group leader makes a sound of understanding. “And would you like to share those reasons with the group?”

Joe shrugs, even though he's fully aware that a good portion of people in the room won't be able to see it. “Not really, no.”

He spends the rest of the hour listening to Dan-or-Damien handing out half-hearted words of advice and encouragement and drinking coffee, and when the hour is over, Rhys still hasn't shown up next to him, so Joe goes to get another coffee. While he's standing at the small corner table with the paper cups and pots of coffee, he stops for a second to listen, whether Rhys is here and speaking to someone else, maybe, as if he'd be able to pick it out. There's footsteps next to him, the sound of coffee being poured out, and Joe coughs.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes?” It's a woman, by the sound of her voice, that one woman with the chemical burns on her face.

“Nathalie? Do you know if Rhys is here?”

“Who?”

“You know, Rhys. Tight jeans, girlish haircut, always sits in the back.”

“Sorry, but he's not here.” The chemical burns woman makes a small noise that sounds almost pitiful. “And I don't know what you're talking about, he doesn't sit in the back.”

“He always drives his brother and then waits in the back until the hour is over,” Joe says, as convinced as possible. “That's what he told me.”

“Yes, I know that he drives his brother. But he's not here, he's never in here until after the meeting. Usually. His brother's here, though.”

“I know his brother's here,” Joe says. He'd spent enough time paying attention to pick up on that. “But I need to talk to Rhys.”

“You two are friends, aren't you?”

“Yeah.” Joe takes a sip from his coffee, but it's not enough to make the nerves and confusion in the pit of his stomach subside. “At least, I hope we are.” He really needs a fag, right now, and so he says, “I'm going to go smoke a cigarette.”

The steps to St Sebastian's side entrance are still warm from the afternoon sun, but still, Joe can't help but feel like they're colder than normally without Rhys next to him. He lights a cig and smokes it down to the filter in just a handful of drags, and then, when he finds himself still sad and confused and guilty over, well, everything, he lights another one. Then another one. He's still got a spare pack at home, but at this rate, he'll be out by tomorrow.

He's on the fourth or fifth fag when someone taps him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Joe?”

“Yeah?” It takes him an embarrassing five seconds or so to remember who the voice belongs to.

Rhys' brother sits down on the steps beside Joe, and for a split second, their arms brush. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course not.” Joe sucks deeply on his cigarette. He dreads asking the next question, and he feels like it's going to make him look like an arse, but. “Uh. So, did Rhys drive you here, or?”

“Had to take the tube.”

A short pause, and Joe isn't sure whether he should say something. Since odds are that anything he's going to say will just make him feel even worse about this, whatever this is, he opts for not saying anything.

“He's not come out of his room for two days, so.”

“Oh.” Well, fuck. “And do you know why?”

“No. Don't really ask any more when that kind of thing happens.”

It takes a split second for that one to really sink in, and then, like that, Joe feels like he's swallowed a brick, something heavy that's torn holes into his throat and that is now lying big and hard in his stomach. Suddenly, what he did seems ten times worse, now that he knows that apparently, it's not Rhys' first time feeling like this.

“Well, Harry's spent most of today trying to get him out of bed, but it didn't work.”

“Oh.” Maybe Joe should say something else that isn't just “oh”, and so he adds, “does that. When he gets like that, does it go away on its own?”

“Yeah. Takes a while, though. Some days, at least.”

Joe lights himself another smoke and takes a deep drag.

“Hey, can I bum one from you?”

“Yeah, here.”

“Thanks, mate.” Rhys' brother coughs, scratchy and painful, and then, once he's stopped coughing, says, “you should go talk to him, maybe.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think it could help.”

Another short silence, and Joe really wants to say something, on how maybe, him talking to Rhys wouldn't be the best idea.

“You guys didn't have a fight or anything, right?”

“Not really, no.” Because they didn't. Not yet.

“Right. Okay.” Again, Rhys' brother coughs, and then his arm brushes Joe's once more. “I'm going to go back inside. You're going to be all right?”

“As all right as possible.” Joe shrugs.

“Yeah.”

When he can't hear any footsteps any more, Joe digs his phone out of his pocket and calls Rhys. Just in case, he figures. It rings once, twice, three times, ten times and then goes to voice mail.

“Fuck.” Not like he expected anything different, but still. He takes another drag from his cigarette and then, he calls Doctor Beaker. On her mobile number, the one that he's been given for emergencies only, but then, he figures that this is an emergency. This time, the phone rings three times.

“Amanda Beaker?”

“Doctor Beaker? This is Joe. Joseph Spurgeon.”

“Joseph, yes. Did something happen?”

Joe takes a deep breath. “I think Rhys and I might be over.”

There, it's out and a little, it feels like he just vomited that brick back up. Or like the words are written in large neon advertisement letters floating in the air, all bright and visible for everyone in a hundred yard radius, and, okay, bad metaphor coming from someone who can't fucking see. The point is, yeah, Joe has thought about the possibility of that happening, of that being the logical conclusion of what happened Saturday, but he didn't think he'd actually have to say it.

“Oh.” Doctor Beaker clears her throat. “That's a rather vague way of putting it.”

“It's kind of complicated. I'm not sure if we actually broke up. I'm pretty sure, is all.” Joe swallows, and his insides feel all clogged. “Not the point, though.”

“And what happened to make you think that?”

“Well.” There is literally no easy way to put this. “It's a bit complicated.” He shifts on the steps, but he can't find a comfortable way to sit. “I've been sleeping with Josh behind Rhys' back.”

A pause, and Joe is pretty sure he can feel his stomach constricting with the need to actually vomit right now.

“For how long have you been doing this?”

“A while. Since I started going out with Rhys, basically.” He lights yet another cig. “It didn't. It wasn't supposed to mean anything. Just something with no strings attached, and we both said we would stop if me and Rhys started getting serious. Whatever that means.” Deep breath. This feels disgusting, like peeling off scabs or something. Exposing all the wounds and soft parts and blood and that. “And then we didn't stop, and I guess Rhys found out and now he's not speaking to me.”

There's no pause of a pen scrawling like there would normally be, so Joe can't really take another breath before Doctor Beaker starts speaking. “I see.” Her voice is all serious, even more so than normally, quiet and almost judgemental. Really, Joe already knows that he's fucked things up, and knowing that Doctor Beaker feels the same just really, really stings deep inside his gut. “And why didn't you ever tell me about this?”

“I'm not sure.” Joe stubs his fag out on the stairs. “I guess it would just cross a line. And like I said, it didn't really mean anything, and I figured we would stop soon enough. I didn't think it would ever get so important I'd have to tell you about it.”

“Well. Forgive me for putting it like that, but it sounds to me like you have a real problem with honesty.”

“Yeah, I know.” He lights yet another fag, at this rate, he's going to have to buy a new pack soon, and continues, “it's just easier, though.” Then he realises what that sounds like, so he adds, “I mean, maybe if I'd told you about Josh before this whole thing would have gone differently, maybe this wouldn't have happened, but.” He sighs, louder than he really meant to. “It's just so hard, owning up to that you've fucked up.”

“I can see where you're coming from,” Doctor Beaker says, and that's probably some psychotherapist language for something else, maybe, “I'm so glad you've finally come to the obvious conclusion,” but Joe doesn't really want to think about that. “So if I'm hearing this right, what you're also saying is you don't want your relationship with Rhys to be over?”

“Yeah. I mean, of course not.” That sounds a bit confused, and also confusing, so Joe adds, “I mean, I like Rhys a lot. More than Josh, too, I kept telling myself I'd break it off with Josh at least for him.”

“And why did you never do that?”

“I don't know.” Joe swallows, or tries to, his throat too tight. “I mean, the sex was great, but. I guess it all just made me really nervous, it felt wrong.” Deep breaths. “I guess the only major thing that was standing between me and Rhys just being a normal couple. And happy.” Joe thinks of all those things he's said and thought, that he's not sure whether it's okay for him to just go ahead and go out with Rhys, to carry on acting like life is normal when he's supposed to be miserable and traumatised and, oh. Oh. “I think maybe I'm scared of that. Of being happy.”

A small pause, and Joe gulps down the warm summer night air like he can't get enough of it, no matter how much of it is exhaust gases.

“Well, Joseph. I think you've just had a major breakthrough.”

“Are you saying I'm right?”

“I'm not going to say that you're wrong.” Doctor Beaker pauses for a split second. “And I think if you want to sort this all out, you should talk to both of them.”

“Yeah.” Joe stubs that fag out on the stairs next to the last one, and doesn't light another one. “I think I will.” He should probably say something else, now that his insides don't feel quite as clogged and heavy as they did before. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem.”

“So, until Thursday?”

“Thursday, yes.”

After he hangs up, Joe calls Rhys again, and again, he gets the voice mail. Deep breaths, and then, he calls Josh.

“Hey.”

“Hey. Listen, can we talk?”

“Of course we can talk. Talk about what?” Josh asks, way too casually, but Joe could swear that his voice is just a bit unsteady.

“Can you come pick me up? I don't want to do this on the phone.”

“Sounds pretty serious,” Josh observes, and Joe wonders whether he has figured out what this is about.

“It is.” Deep breath. “I'm still at St Sebastian's, can you come here?”

“Yeah. Give me ten minutes.”

“All right.”

After he hangs up, Joe lies back against the staircase, feels the stone press still-warm against his back where his shirt has rucked up, and he waits. He counts seconds, for a while, and gets his phone to tell him the time every two minutes, which feels silly in a really sad way, honestly. When Josh gets there, it's eleven minutes past eight, and Joe's insides are all fizzing with nervousness, too light, twitching.

“Hey.”

“Hey again,” Joe says.

“So, talk. My car?”

“Yeah.” He holds up one hand and lets Josh lead him over to where he's parked, and the touch of skin on skin makes him shudder heavily.

Joe gets in on the passenger side and shuts the door. He buckles up the seatbelt, even though he realises immediately after how idiotic that is. This is how Josh always goes about serious conversations, always has, in the front seat of his parked car. It's where Joe had confronted him about the fact that he'd been seeing a girl behind his back, what seems like years and years ago, and where they'd broken up a few months after that.

Joe can feel the pit of his stomach constricting once more.

Josh flicks his lighter and Joe resists the urge to ask if he can bum a fag. “Shoot.”

“So.” Somehow it doesn't get any easier to say the second time. “I think I probably lost Rhys.”

“Fuck.”

Before Josh can say anything other than that, Joe adds, “he knows about us.”

“Fuck,” once again. “Yeah.”

“Well.” Deep breaths. The car smells like fast food grease and nicotine and stale air, and Joe figures this would be much easier if Josh could actually contribute something to the conversation. “Aren't you going to say something?”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For being a cunt. Everything.”

Deep breath. “Well, finally you admit it.”

“Yeah. So we should stop doing this, then.”

“We should have stopped months ago. Or never started.”

Josh swallows, audibly. One of his hands moves to Joe's arm, then further down, and tangles their fingers together. It runs a shiver all the way through Joe's torso and it feels so, so wrong.

“Josh.”

“I'm not trying to do anything sexual, or. Well. Anything. Let me just.”

“Yeah, okay.” Josh's fingers are too big and wide, even with their hands only linked loosely. His hand is all warm and a bit sweaty, and Joe wishes he could pull away. “Still feels wrong.”

“Yeah. I guess you're right.” Josh runs his thumb over the back of Joe's hand, the vein there that pulses so hard Joe swears he can actually feel it. “I mean, of course you're right, this is really wrong. Fuck, this is confusing.”

“Not really, no.”

“Yeah, the fact that it's wrong isn't confusing, just. I don't know. I just really miss you.”

“What?”

“Us. I still miss that. Before all that stuff went wrong.”

Joe gulps down a huge breath of air, but most of it ends up being cigarette smoke. “Yeah, well, I used to miss that, too.” He's trying his hardest to not sound like a massive cunt. “But now you have Mike, and I've got Rhys. Or at least I really hope I do.”

“Yeah. And we can still be mates, I guess. If that doesn't get too awkward.”

“Well, we were still best mates after the first time we broke up.” Joe shrugs. Maybe it's not Rhys who he likes more than he really should, but Josh. “So I suppose, yeah.”

“If Rhys doesn't mind too much.”

It probably shouldn't, but the mention of Rhys makes Joe's stomach tighten a bit again. “Yeah.”

“Have you talked to him already? About all this?”

“Not yet. I've been phoning him, but he's not picking up, so.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I'm going to try again later.”

“I should probably tell Mike about this.”

“I thought you'd said she knew.”

“Yeah, she doesn't.”

Joe wants to say something, but before he can, Josh squeezes his hand tighter. “I mean, don't get me wrong. She knew that we weren't exclusive, but.” There's a choked-off sound coming from Josh's throat, a sound that Joe is pretty sure he's never heard from him before, and then it hits him that Josh is probably crying. Joe doesn't think that he's ever seen Josh crying until now. Well, yeah. “She didn't know about you, you know. Any part of you, she doesn't know that you were there before her.”

Somehow, hearing that makes everything about Josh seem both way more and way less awful. Joe feels this weird mixture of wanting to hug and comfort him and to punch him in the face. “Why the fuck didn't you ever tell her?”

“What, are you the only one who's allowed to be a cunt and fuck everything up now?”

“No, no. Didn't mean it like that, just.” Deep breath. “I don't really understand.”

“Yeah, and I don't want my girlfriend to know I'm a cunt who cheats on his boyfriend for months on end. Sort of how you didn't want Rhys to know about me.”

Joe's insides just twist up even tighter at that. “Yeah. Fair enough.”

Josh makes that one really gross noise that he makes when he cleans his nose, and then he says, “I'm not crying.”

“Okay.” Joe folds his hands together and cracks his knuckles, but it's not enough to make the heavy feeling in his guts fade out. “Hey, can you bum me a fag?”

“Yeah, here.” Josh places the filter of a lit cig between Joe's lips. “Do you want me to drive you home, or?”

“Yeah, if you don't mind.”

When he gets home, after a drive that takes twenty minutes and feels like an hour, silent save for the mix Josh has put on on the car's shitty stereo, Joe calls Rhys for the third time. Yes, he's aware that maybe it's a bit creepy and weird, but if Rhys really did spend over two days in bed moping, he's got the right to be concerned, doesn't he. Both in a decent boyfriend and a decent human being sense, although Joe wants to fucking hope that it's not going to be over once Rhys picks up.

He gets the voice mail again.

The next two days, Joe spends staying at home. He figures that maybe, he shouldn't lie in bed and feel like shit all day, no need to make his mum worry even more, so instead, he sits on the couch or in the kitchen and drinks coffee, the good kind, for once, and feels like mostly shit. Worried-shit, mainly, since it's only a matter of time until Rhys breaks up with him for good, or not, and since, right, Rhys still isn't picking up. Joe calls seven times over Tuesday and gets the voice mail every time. He receives one call, but it's Josh, just checking up on him. He doesn't ask Joe whether he wants to come out, which Joe appreciates, honestly.

The fourth time Joe calls Rhys on Wednesday, while he's sitting in the living room listening to some nature documentary that's on TV, for lack of anything else to do, mainly, someone finally picks up on the other end.

“Rhys? Is that you?”

“Hey.” A girl's voice. Rhys' sister. “Listen, I'd really appreciate it if you stopped calling Rhys. He's not in the mood to talk to people, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Joe feels, in a weird, undefined sense, terrible. “Sorry.”

There's silence on the line. On the other end, wherever Harry is, music plays softly. Joe is pretty sure it's a song that Rhys had shown him, and that just makes it worse.

“Aren't you going to hang up?”

Joe asks, “why?” He feels obligated to say something else, maybe to apologise for doing what he did and making Rhys feel like this, but he can't figure out how to put it without sounding like a complete cunt.

“You seemed like you were going to.”

“Yeah.” Deep breath. Harry doesn't sound like she has the desire to rip his head off through the telephone or anything like that, so Joe assumes Rhys hasn't told her anything yet. “How's Rhys, by the way? Other than not in the mood to talk.”

“Sad and tired and panicky, mostly.”

“Oh.” Joe feels like his entire insides just curled into themselves. “Well, I'm. Sorry.” Sorry for being that cunt who cheated on your brother – who's kind of stupidly perfect even when he's kind of an idiot and talks about records too often – with his ex for absolutely no good reason at all. Damn, it sounds so much worse put into proper words like that. “I mean, I'm not sure if I can tell you to tell him to get well soon. I don't reckon that would actually help.”

“Thanks for the sentiment.” Harry laughs. “If it makes you any less worried, he's been getting better. Well, he's talking. And eating, but not a lot. But, I mean, it could be worse.”

Honestly, Joe isn't sure whether that makes him less worried or just more so. “Oh.”

“I'm going to hang up now. Rhys's going to call you back when he's better, all right?”

“Yeah,” Joe says, deep breath. “All right.” He feels, at the very least, a lot more all right than he did before. “Bye, Harry.”

“Bye.”

Joe slides his phone back into his pocket and sighs. He really craves a fag.

By the time that Rhys does call back, it's Thursday, while Joe is on the bus back home from a surprisingly not too draining meeting with Doctor Beaker. They'd talked about Josh, about his reaction to everything and about what had happened between them up to then. Doctor Beaker had only brought Rhys up fleetingly, and honestly, Joe preferred it that way, especially while everything between them was still kind of weird and uncertain.

He doesn't expect it when the call comes, slumped in his seat and contemplating whether or not he would have to stop for fags at the corner shop, so when his phone explodes with some psychedelic ringtone that Rhys had put on there months and months ago, he basically jumps right out of his skin.

It takes a few seconds until he's fumbled for his phone and said, “pick up,” and then, “yes, hello?”

“Hey. Joe?” Rhys' voice comes out soft, almost normal sounding, if it weren't for that distinct bit of sadness in there. Joe has, for once, literally no fucking clue how to feel about anything, and neither do his insides, divided between sinking down heavy and fluffing up light. “Hey. You feeling better?”

“Better, yeah.” Rhys coughs. “Stable.” He sounds so fragile, fragile but soft the way he feels. It's a bit sad.

“Well, that's. That's good, I guess?” Joe is such a fucking idiot.

“Yeah. Listen, we've got to talk.”

Here it comes. “Talk, then.”

“I mean like, face to face. Sorry. In person.” Joe has to suppress the urge to laugh, but at the same time, he feels his stomach sink all the way heavy and his throat constrict, like his body has finally decided what to do about this situation. “Can I come over?”

“Yeah, sure.” Fuck, Joe needs a fag right about now. Not while he's on the bus, though, so he opts for digging his fingernails deep into the flesh of his arm. “No need to hurry, though. 'm still on the bus.”

“All right. So, see you then?”

“Yeah, in a moment.” Then Rhys hangs up, and Joe just digs in a bit harder. It's almost relaxing.

He lights that fag as soon as he gets off at his stop, and then a second one when he sits down on the porch outside the door. It's a nice evening, one of the dry ones that still have the day's heat buzzing in the air, all quiet without the noise of any cars and just a few buzzing insects in the air. Too nice, almost, and by the time that a car does pull up next to the house with a humming engine and the stink of petrol, Joe is halfway through the second cigarette. He already knows it's Rhys' car, and that just makes his stomach curl again.

He reckons he makes it sound pretty effortless though when he calls out “hey,” after the slam of the car door.

“Hey.” Rhys' arm brushes his lightly when he sits down on the porch, but that's it, no kiss or any other contact. Not like that's particularly surprising, but Joe can't help but get nervous again. “How long've you been waiting here?”

“I'm not waiting,” Joe says, even though, yeah, that's pretty much what he'd been doing, “just smoking,” and he gestures toward the fag helpfully.

“Right. Care to bum me one?”

“Yeah, here.”

“Thanks.” Rhys' voice is still so sad and light, and Joe can't help but want to hold him tightly and kiss that sadness away, but he's pretty sure that wouldn't be okay on any level. “Can I get a light?”

Joe passes his lighter over as well.

“Forgot mine at home. Guess I owe you.”

“It's okay.”

“Yeah.” Rhys exhales so deeply Joe can hear it, and then the whiff of smoke hits him in the face.

“So you said you wanted to talk.”

“Yeah,” Rhys just says once again, and Joe almost wants to cringe at that. He doesn't like this, when people get all monosyllabic and quiet. It usually means he's done something really wrong, and, yeah, he has.

“Listen, Rhys, I'm sorry,” he starts, but he doesn't get any further than that, because Rhys cuts him off.

“No, no, I'm sorry.”

Wait. What? “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“All of that.” Rhys makes an odd sound, and Joe really, really hopes he's not crying. He's terrible at dealing with crying people, and two in one week is just a bit too much for him. “And I can understand if you don't want to go out with me any more after that.”

“After what?” Joe asks, and really, he just feels like a bigger idiot by the second, because it feels like he's the only one not in on something really obvious.

“Well, after I basically had a huge freak out and then spent most of a week in my room, for once.”

“Yeah, but.” Wrong direction. “That's not. No reason to break up with you. Not like it's even your fault.”

“Maybe it should be. And it's not like that's the only reason why you'd want to break up with me,” and yeah, neither of them are steering this conversation anywhere into the right direction. This is supposed to be about Joe being a horrible person and Rhys breaking up with him, not the other way around.

“I don't want to break up with you. I like you.” Joe darts his hand out a little bit on the porch and doesn't meet any part of Rhys. He feels way too far away.

“Yeah, but.” A small pause, and Rhys' hand reaches out to cover Joe's. His hand is too cold. “I don't know.”

“I look like I belong in a freak show and I'm terribly insecure and an arsehole,” Joe says, and that's that. “If anything, you should want to break up with me.” He tries to laugh, to make this conversation seem a bit less depressing, but it comes out sounding fake and doesn't work.

“Shut up. You're the greatest thing that's happened to me. Ever,” Rhys says, all exasperated, and his hand just keeps lying on top of Joe's all limp and cold. Joe really wants to hold it properly, but not right now. “I sound like such a teenager, but.” Rhys sighs. “I'm this shitty combination between really boring and really annoying. I talk too much about stuff no one cares about.”

“What's this going to be, a bullet point list of reasons why we should break up?” Joe asks, and it just makes him feel like more of an arsehole. He's got the feeling that everything he does at this point is just going to make him feel like an arsehole, though. “And yeah, well. You do talk way too much and half the time I've got no idea what you're really trying to say because I just don't know what you're talking about, but.” He stubs out his fag and lights another one. “I don't know, I like listening to you talk about boring things. I just like the way your voice sounds.”

“And I'm incredibly needy. I get attached to people really quickly and then I want them to be attached to me back and I just have to be needed all the time.” Rhys sighs once again. “Can I have another fag?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Thanks. And, look, this is going to sound terrible, but I guess that's one of the reasons why I even started liking you in the first place. That you'd have to need me way more than anyone else would need me, because you're blind.”

Joe swallows. “That does sound kinda horrible.” He sounds like Doctor Beaker, fuck's sake. Deep breath.

“Don't get me wrong, I don't like you just because you're blind. I mean, you've got great taste in music, and you're funny when you want to be. And you've got blow job lips. And I'm pretty sure there's lots of big more important things that I like about you, but I can't think of them right now, but yeah, you're great.”

Joe tries to not laugh, but it slips out either way, just for a short second. In the quiet of the air, it sounds kind of odd.

“And I've got. Fuck, this is weird to say.” Rhys' hand slips away from Joe's once again, and then Joe feels kind of empty, and his stomach just keeps sinking. This is not supposed to be about all the things wrong with Rhys at all. “Listen, you remember what happened to my brother, right?”

“You said he got mugged. When he was walking home late after a gig, I think.”

“Yeah.” A short pause, and now Joe can hear Rhys taking a deep breath. “That was when I was still with my ex. We were staying in that night, that was when I was still living in my own flat, so when my brother calls me and asks me to come pick him up, I say no.” Another deep breath, and Joe thinks he knows where this is going. “The venue wasn't that far away, I just told him to walk home or catch a taxi or something, well, yeah.” Rhys' hand comes back to touch Joe's, gripping it properly this time, too tight and a bit sweaty. Joe knows exactly where this is going. “And then the next time someone calls me, it's someone from the emergency room, saying that he's been attacked, that he got knifed in the fucking eye.”

A weird sound that Joe can't place, and of which he really, really hopes that it's not a sob. Rhys moves a bit closer, close enough to put his head on Joe's shoulder, and Joe can't really resist the urge to wrap one arm around him.

“Rhys, fuck, I'm so sorry.” Then, because he knows what's about to come, because he knows Rhys like that, he adds, “it's okay, it wasn't your fault.”

“Yeah. I know that now.” In his grip, Rhys is shaking a bit, soft hiccuping little tremors, and, okay, Joe understands. The reason he's crying, that is, because if he could, he'd probably be crying as well just from how tightly his stomach has cramped up with feeling guilty and stupid, and just feeling things about Rhys. “But I guess back then I didn't, so I kind of just.” Deep breath. Joe inhales deeper than he means to as well, and he's not really sure why. “I kind of lost control of my life, I just kept worrying what would happen if that kind of thing happened again. So I ended up quitting my jobs and moving back in with my family and breaking up with my boyfriend, and, yeah.” Something in Rhys' throat cracks, so loudly Joe could swear he can feel it too, and then he says, “I mean, I'm better now, I guess. I go to this post-traumatic stress support group every Monday.”

The other support group that meets in St Sebastian's basement, yeah. Actually Joe had heard of that one, Remaining Strong Together, way back when he had to sit through Izzy reading off names of support groups she'd found on the internet. Suddenly, everything makes a lot more sense.

“The only reason I even met you was because this one time, I wasn't feeling too well, so I just wanted to go get my brother and then drive home, and then I saw you.” Deep breath, so deep Joe can feel Rhys' shoulders rising with it. “And I guess that last week, seeing you with bruises and scratches all over, that just sent me way back to that. I just kind of freaked out.”

Rhys goes all limp in Joe's grip, where before he was tense, and, fuck, that has just made everything much worse. Because Rhys doesn't actually know the reason behind those marks, and the whole time, he'd been thinking that it's his fault something went wrong and, fuck.

“Why didn't you ever tell me about any of that? And why did you lie the whole time?”

“I don't know.” Rhys makes that weird hiccuping-sobbing sound again, and, this is all terrible. This is so terrible. “I guess because I wanted you to like me. And I didn't want you to think I'm crazy, because that's what everyone thinks of when they hear post-traumatic stress, those crazy war veterans who start screaming and thinking they're back in combat in the middle of a bloody supermarket because they heard a loud noise. What most of the people at my support group are like.” Rhys shifts a little bit. “Can I have another fag?”

“Yeah, here.”

“And I didn't want you to think I was like that.” Exhale. The air smells too much like smoke. “But I guess you know now. That I'm crazy.”

“It's all right.” Joe has both the urge to pull Rhys that bit closer and to move away. He's got to tell Rhys now, not that he wasn't planning on it before, but this has made everything much worse. “I mean, I don't think you're crazy.”

Then, for a while, Rhys just doesn't say anything, and Joe doesn't feel like saying much either, so he just keeps Rhys there, close to him, and waits until the soft shakes in his body stop. Deep breaths.

“Thanks. I guess.” Rhys lets himself relax even more in Joe's arm, and it would be almost nice, if it weren't for that twisting heavy feeling inside of Joe's gut. “For thinking I'm not crazy.”

“Yeah.”

“So that means you don't want to break up.”

“Of course not,” Joe starts, but then, well. Right. “I mean.”

“What?”

“There's something I've got to tell you.” Deep breath. Now there's no going back or anything. “I've been sleeping with my ex. Josh. Since we started going out, basically.”

Rhys goes all stiff under Joe's arm. He pulls away, just a little. “What?”

“Yeah. And I'd been meaning to break it off for months, I'm not sure why we even started shagging again.” Joe pulls his arm away from Rhys, breaking contact for a second, to light another fag. “It was all just really weird and wrong, but the sex was great. You've seen the marks.”

“So that's where,” Rhys starts.

“Yeah. I'd thought you figured it out from that, I felt so bad.” Joe takes a deep drag, but it doesn't really help with the way his insides are curling into themselves. “So I don't know if you still want to be together now. I mean, I understand.”

“I'm not sure.” Rhys moves closer yet again, so close their shoulders touch. It's almost comforting. “This is all just really weird.”

“It is.”

“I don't want this to be over. Us,” Rhys says, and it feels so, so strange, in a sense. Surreal, almost, and, yeah, that's probably one of these low self-esteem things. His hand reaches out and covers Joe's, yet again.

“Me neither.” Joe squeezes his fingers tighter around where Rhys' fit into the spaces between them. “I broke it off with Josh, you know. So that's one less thing that's in the way.”

“Good. I suppose.”

“Yeah.” Joe has the feeling the conversation is about to end, and he doesn't really want it to. “Can you stay here? Just for a while. For dinner, or.”

“Yeah,” Rhys says, almost calm and collected enough to make it sound like before all this, but only almost, “not a problem.”

And Rhys does stay. Not for dinner, but long enough, just sitting on the porch like that. They don't talk much, but it's good, makes the anxiety and the heaviness in Joe's guts fade out. When he leaves, Rhys kisses Joe on the cheek, just for a short second, and Joe doesn't even mind.

“So. See you, then?”

“Yeah. Next week?”

“After Looking Forward,” Joe says.

“After Remaining Strong Together,” Rhys replies, and Joe laughs. He's mostly all right, he supposes.

The next few days, the weekend without Rhys, he still figures he's all right. Saturday night, he goes out to the pub with Josh and Tom, and it's almost not awkward, and then, Monday, he's back at St Sebastian's.

Rhys brings him coffee before the meeting, kisses him on the cheek yet again, and then talks about his weekend. He didn't do much, actually, and Joe just laughs and says, “me neither.” It feels a little like before, the before from before they were going out, that is, like walking on egg shells, but Joe doesn't mind too much. At least he's still got this.

When the bell tolls half seven and Rhys gets up to leave, he asks, “see you later?” and Joe replies, “yeah. Later.”

He spends most of the meeting halfway zoned out, the way he always does, until Dan-or-Damien asks him to speak up.

“I'm Joe,” he starts. “I've had my eyes destroyed by shrapnel in a car accident, and I guess I'm still trying to get everything in my life back together. But I'm trying to be happy.”


End file.
